Yulo open for new coach but says current setup working well for him

MANILA, Philippines: Filipino Olympic gymnast Carlos Yulo has been training and competing without an ‘official’ head coach for about nine months now after he parted ways with long-time Japanese trainer Munehiro Kugiyama.

Yulo open for new coach but says current setup working well for him

And while he’s open for a new one, he said that the current setup he has with coaches Aldrin Castañeda and Hazel Calawod are working just fine, feeling that they’re working well as a team.

“I’m okay with my team now but I’m open if there’s going to be another coach but there’s none at the moment,” said Yulo in an interview with ABS-CBN’s Dyan Castillejo.

“But right now, this current setup works well for me. I’m happy with my team and they’ve been very helpful to me. I can really feel that we can pull this off,” added the Paris Olympics-bound Yulo.

Castañeda is coaching Yulo in the gymnastics side of things while Calawod is her sports physiotherapist and mental coach albeit she’s also giving inputs in the Olympian’s performance with her knowledge in body mechanics.

“My (interim) coach is coach Aldrin Castañeda. He’s the head coach of the Philippine team and coach Hazel. She’s my therapist but she knows how to look at my performances, having studied body mechanics,” shared Yulo.

“We’ve been studying and making plans, helping each other during training, and we’re setting goals. The result I have now isn’t just because of me, it’s because of us. I’m thankful that they’ve been helping me with my target.”

The result Yulo was talking about was the gold and silver medal haul he claimed in the recently-concluded Doha leg of the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup.

Yulo topped the parallel bars competition for the gold medal and finished second in the vault for the silver.

“I’m very happy and grateful but there’s a lot of work to be done although the top athletes in p-bars gymnasts aren’t there but a result is result. I really need to work more on p-bars.”

Yulo, 24, is back in the country and will spend some time training here before leaving for Uzbekistan to compete in the Senior Asian Championships in May.

He will then head to Metz, France to join his fellow Filipino Olympians in a month-long training before competing in the Paris Games in July.