For the second time in a row, Carlos Edriel Yulo played second fiddle Thursday in the 10th edition of Artistic Gymnastics Senior Asian Championships held at the OCBC Arena in Singapore, although it assured him a fifth straight trip to the world championships in Antwerp, Belgium in September.

Seeing action in the subdivision 1 morning session, Yulo seemed to have locked up his first individual all-around title with a high combined score of 85.930 points as he virtually improved on all his apparatus scores from last year’s Asian meet in Doha, Qatar.

In the end, however, the pint-sized Filipino phenom was bested by a Japanese who also works out right in his Tokyo training backyard, the Tokushukai gym, in former world junior champion Oka Shinnosuke, who saw action in subdivision 3 in the evening and emerged with a top score of 86.065 points. Compatriot KItazono Takeru (85.431) took the bronze medal.

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Yulo, who also settled for the silver in the Doha meet with 83.767 points, nonetheless formally booked a ticket to the 42nd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships that will be held from Sept. 30 to Oct. 8 in the city regarded as Belgian’s chocolate capital.

China took overall team honors with a score of 256.762 points, narrowly edging out Japan (256.694) for the gold while Kazakhstan (246.828) captured the bronze, with South Korea (245.561) and Uzbekistan (245.561) taking fourth and fifth, respectively.

The Kazakhs, South Korean and Uzbeks will join the Chinese and Japanese, who had already qualified for the worlds, as Asia’s representatives in the Belgium competition.

The PH squad of Yulo, Juancho Miguel Besana, Ivan Cruz, Justine Ace de Leon and Jan Gwyn Timbang wound up in seventh place (237.193), two rungs higher than its previous last year, besting perennial Southeast Asian rival Vietnam, the 32nd Cambodia Southeast Asia Games team champ, which ended up in eighth place (235.895).

• SEA Games: Yulo retains all-around gold as PH nabs team silver

The Tokyo-based Yulo highlighted his performance with the highest scores of 15.066 on the parallel bars and 14.966 on the floor exercise in the continental gymnastics competition.

He also tallied 13.266 on the pommel horse, 14.300 on the rings, where he finished No. 2., 14.833 on the vault (No. 1) and 13.466 on the horizontal bar.

Yulo will be back Saturday for the floor exercise and rings apparatus finals and vault and parallel bars the succeeding day

Scheduled to compete Friday was the women’s squad composed of Alea Finnegan, Elma Malabuyo, both former members of the US national team, Lucia Manzano and Lucia Gutierrez at 5:30 p.m. in subdivision 4.