Young gymnast Palles proud of ‘best exposure’ gained in YOG stint

MANILA — Filipino gymnast Hilarion Palles III could not make the final of the men’s individual all-around in the 4th Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, but he is proud of the experience he gained while representing the country.

“I had the best exposure I could ever get from these games and I got to meet some of the best gymnasts in the world my age, many of them even became my friends,” said Palles after the qualification rounds on Saturday at the Dalar Exhibition Center in Diamniadio.

Palles is one of only two Filipino gymnasts sent by the Philippine Olympic Committee and supported by the Philippine Sports Commission, along with Tchelzy Maayo who vied in the women’s qualification on Sunday afternoon.

Palles and Maayo could only compete in one of only two medal events of gymnastics because the Philippines doesn’t have the numbers to vie in the team event.

Nonetheless, the 16-year-old Palles showed that he has the potential to follow the footsteps of the country’s pride in the sport, brothers Carlos and Eldrew Yulo.

“He’s only trained seriously on the elite level the past nine months, and he already showed major improvements,” said coach Reyland Capellan.

Palles started gymnastics at the iconic Club Gymnastica made famous by gymnastics and taekwondo icon Bea Lucero Lhuillier and displayed championship skills in the Palarong Pambansa.

He was spotted by the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines and is now under Capellan and Yulo’s former mentor, Munehiro Kugimiya.

“I trained two weeks under Coach Mune in Japan before I got here and I learned a lot,” Palles said. “He’s very strict, very disciplined, but I learned and am learning a lot.”

Palles’s scores in the six apparatus in the all-around were12.266 in vault, 9.666 in the parallel bars, 11.566 in the horizontal bar, 11.733 in floor exercise, 10.266 in pommel horse and 10.166 in the rings.

“I was able to apply what I learned in training and got the results I expected,” said Palles, whose specialties are the vault, high bar and parallel bars where he raised his difficulties.

Palles ranked 49th among 60 athletes with 65.633 points.

Uzair Chowdhury of Great Britain was the only athlete to pass 80 points with 80.798, followed by Landin Yang (79.897) of China and Naoto Shiroiwa (79.265) to advance to Monday’s final.

Also competing on Sunday afternoon was Naomi Cesar in the women’s 800 meters of athletics and Maritanya Krog in women’s road race of cycling.

China now leads the games with 10 gold, three silver and two bronze medals, followed by Japan which is now second with 8-3-4 (gold-silver-bronze) and Russian Federation with 4-2-0.