Four days after crashing onto his back in qualification, Carlos Yulo stood atop the vault podium at the Asian Games on Friday, September 25, 2026, giving himself a second title in as many days at the Nagoya City General Gymnasium.
That fall had come on his front handspring double pike in Monday’s qualifying round. According to Olympics.com, his hand slipped on the vault and he landed hard, but he regrouped for his second attempt and still made the final as the seventh-best qualifier. Rappler reported his qualifying average at 13.649.
With the medals on the line, Yulo opened with a 14.733 and followed it with a 14.466, good for an average of 14.599.
That total held up under pressure from Iran’s Mahdi Olfati, who went after the Filipino. Olfati posted 15.100 on his opening vault, the best single score of the final, but dropped to 13.966 on his second attempt and finished with silver at 14.533. Hong Kong’s Ng Ka Ki, who had led qualification, took bronze with an average of 14.116.
Yulo had already signaled that the vault was back under control. After helping the Philippines place sixth in Wednesday’s team final, where he had the fourth-highest vault score, he said: “For me, my vault, I was really comfortable today, and I think I really get that good feeling.”
The 26-year-old claimed his first Asian Games gold on Thursday in the floor exercise, scoring 14.666 on a routine with 5.7 in difficulty and 8.966 in execution. Both of the country’s gold medals in Aichi-Nagoya now belong to him.
Vault had eluded him at this level before. At the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia, an 18-year-old Yulo finished fourth on the apparatus, The Manila Times reported. He went on to win the floor and vault titles at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and Rappler noted that he now holds gold in both events at the Olympics, World Championships, World Cups, Asian Games, Asian Championships, and Southeast Asian Games.
Yulo was also entered in the parallel bars final later on Friday, having qualified sixth on the apparatus with 14.266.
A second Filipino made the vault final. Juancho Miguel Besana, who qualified fourth with 13.933, placed fifth with an average of 13.783.
