24 Sep Carlos, 2018. Now, Gold.
In 2018, Carlos Yulo was already competing on the Asian Games stage.
We photographed him that year in Jakarta, representing the Philippines and doing what he had been training to do: compete. There was no medal that time. No podium finish. Just another routine, another competition, and another moment in a career that was still taking shape.
Eight years later, that same athlete has an Asian Games gold medal.
Yulo won the men’s floor exercise final in Nagoya with a score of 14.666, built from 5.700 in difficulty and 8.966 in execution. Kazakhstan’s Milad Karimi finished behind him with 14.600, while Japan’s Shoma Tsukiyama took bronze with 14.566.
The result gave the Philippines its first gold medal of the 20th Asian Games. It also made Yulo the first Filipino to win an Asian Games gold medal in artistic gymnastics.
He had also competed in the men’s team final the day before, scoring 14.266 on the floor as the Philippine team finished sixth.
The Nagoya victory adds an Asian Games title to Yulo’s growing list of major wins. He already made Olympic history in Paris in 2024, taking gold in both floor exercise and vault, and earlier this year, he claimed another floor exercise gold at the 2026 Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
There was another Yulo in the floor final, too.
Karl Eldrew Yulo, Carlos’ younger brother, made the final in his Asian Games debut. At 18, he finished seventh with 12.233, adding an Asian Games final to the beginning of his senior international career.
But the competition is not over for either brother.
Carlos will return tomorrow, September 25, for the vault and parallel bars finals, while Eldrew will compete in the horizontal bar final. Both will have another chance to compete for medals in Nagoya.
For Carlos, though, the day was about completing something that had not yet been part of his collection.
And for us, there is another way to look at it.
Somewhere in the Red Ox archives is that photograph from 2018 of a much younger Carlos, in the middle of a routine, competing for the Philippines.
We kept the picture because that moment mattered too, even without a medal attached to it.
Now, eight years later, we can look at the same athlete through a different lens.
The Olympic champion is now an Asian Games champion.
The young gymnast we photographed in Jakarta is now standing on top of the podium in Nagoya. A 14.666 on the scoreboard, gold around his neck, and a moment that now belongs to Philippine sports history.
The photograph has not changed. What it means to us has.
2018. Now, gold.