TWO-TIME Olympic champion Carlos Yulo will have a chance to win the gold medal in floor exercise at the 2026 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Rotterdam on Saturday at 8 p.m. (Manila time). The 26-year-old Filipino gymnast is fresh from a historic double gold medal performance at the 20th Asian Games in Japan, where he won the floor exercise and vault titles. Yulo last claimed a World Championships gold on floor exercise in 2019 in Stuttgart, becoming the first Southeast Asian athlete to win the event. In that final, he scored 15.300 points, the highest score posted so far in the history of the open-ended scoring era of the World Championships where he posted a 6.5 difficulty for his routine. The world champions from the 2021 to 2025 scored below 15 points. On Friday, Yulo made the final with a score of 14.500 points (difficulty 5.700, execution 8.800), second only to Russia’s Dukhno Arsenii (14.700).  Yulo opened his routine with a 2.5 twist into a front double pike and closed with a double layout, taking only a small hop on landing. Since his 2019 triumph, Yulo has come close but fallen short of winning another gold in the World Championships. He finished fifth in Kitakyushu 2021 after stepping out of bounds; seventh in Liverpool 2022 after a fall; fourth in Antwerp 2023 with a score of 14.500; and finally returned to the podium with a bronze medal in Jakarta 2025 (14.533), behind British gymnasts Jake Jarman (14.866) and Luke Whitehouse (14.666). The 4-foot-11 Yulo will look to end his seven-year gold medal drought against a strong field of competitors that also include Artem Dolgopyat (14.300), Frederick Richard (14.233) and reigning world champion Jarman (14.133). Yulo will also defend his vault title on Sunday. He won the vault gold in 2021 and 2025. His other medals in the World Championships include silvers on parallel bars (2021) and vault (2022) and bronzes on floor exercise (2018 and 2025) and parallel bars (2022). The World Championships remain the highest-level global competition outside the Olympic Games and serve as a key qualifying pathway for the 2028 Olympics.