MANILA, Philippines – The vault throne still belongs to Carlos Yulo.

Even after a performance less stellar than his qualification run, Yulo managed to defend his men’s vault crown in the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Singapore following a fairly sufficient show in the final on Sunday, June 18.

Emerging as the top qualifier with an average of 14.833 points, the Filipino star normed 14.299 points in the final but did just enough to fend off the rest of the field and retain the gold medal he won in Doha, Qatar last year.

A faulty landing resulted in 13.966 points in first vault, but Yulo pulled up his score after earning 14.633 points in his second vault.

Yulo – the first to perform – held on to the lead as almost every other finalist stumbled in the event where he is a former world champion.

Uzbekistan’s Abdulaziz Mirvaliev threatened to dislodge Yulo from the top with a 14.666-point vault in his first attempt only to score a measly 13.5 points in his second try as he settled for silver with a 14.083 average.

Korea’s Kim Jae-ho snagged bronze with an average of 13.766 points.

Reigning Southeast Asian Games vault champion Juancho Miguel Besana competed with Yulo in the final, finishing eighth with 13.417 points.

Yulo, who also bagged the floor exercise gold and the all-around silver, has two more cracks at medals as he sees action in the parallel bars and horizontal bar finals on Sunday. – Rappler.com