MANILA – Gymnastics golden boy Carlos Yulo and promising weightlifter Albert Ian delos Santos lead the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) top achievers in May.
Yulo, double gold medalist at the 2024 Paris Olympics, powered his European club OAJLP (Olympique Antibes-Juan-les-Pins) Gymnastique to the French Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Championship crown in Amiens.
He scored 15.050 (floor exercise) and 14.250 (parallel bars) as his club dethroned ASVG Vallarius.
The 19-year-old Delos Santos delivered a record-breaking win at the IWF World Junior Championships in Ismailia, Egypt.
Overcoming grief from the recent death of his father, Alvin, the young Delos Santos topped the clean and jerk with a record-setting 187kg and total lift of 326kg in the men’s 71kg division.
He broke his own record of 185kg set at the Thailand Southeast Asian Games in December 2025.
Rolando Dy also shone in May, beating former boxing champion Paulie Malignaggi in two rounds to defend his World Bare Knuckle super welterweight title in Manchester, England.
The 34-year-old Dy, son of former world boxing champion Rolando Navarette, sent Malignaggi down twice in the second round en route to victory.
The other top achievers were boxers Carlo Paalam and Clark Vicera, para swimmer Angel Otom, and cue master Jeffrey Ignacio.
Paalam, a silver medalist at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, dominated the men’s elite 55kg division of the Eindhoven Box Cup 2026 in the Netherlands, while the 18-year-old Vicera ruled the men’s elite 50kg class.
Vicera also won at the Winner Elite Men’s & Women’s Boxing Tournament in Serbia, where Riza Pasuit took the gold in the women’s featherweight division.
Otom, 22, captured the gold in the women’s S5 50m backstroke (47.89) and the bronze in the 50m butterfly (46.52) at the World Para Swimming Series Fuji-Shizuoka in Japan.
Raemon Adefuin, 15, also got a bronze in men’s Youth 50m butterfly (34.31).
Ignacio clobbered compatriot Sean Mark Malayan, 13-1, in the finals of the World 9-Ball Tour at the WNT TAOM Arena Open in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (PNA)
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