' Chloe & I want to get married next year' - Carlos Yulo

Carlos Yulo is the quintessential poster boy for the small-but-terrible saying. At 4'9", his "official height," he towers like a giant in gymnastics. His double-gold medal haul at Paris Olympics proves that the David in him has a slingshot that can slay the intimidating gymnastics' floor exercise and vault.

- BÜM D. TENORIO, JR.

Gymnastics has been his world since he was seven. It is the same world his siblings are treading now. "My brother Karl Eldrew has a big potential (to also make it to Olympics)," he says in the vernacular. Cynthia Carrion Norton, the wind beneath his wings and president of the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines, agrees with Carlos. "His brother is the next big thing," she says.

"I never stopped training," Carlos, 24, says. "That explains why my height is stunted. 'Yung mga buto ko po sa tuhod ay hindi ma-i-stretch dahil hindi po ako tumigil sa training."

In an intimate party recently at Cervezeria in BGC hosted by Gambia Consul Agnes Huibonhoa and businesswoman Tina Cuevas for Joanne Rae Ramirez on her 25th year as editor-in-chief of PeopleAsia magazine, Carlos explained that when the human bone is exposed to rigorous training, “most specially when I train for floor exercise where there's extreme impact on the feet and the knee," the ability of the bone to grow is restricted.

How often does he train when he is preparing for a competition?

"I train for six hours a day. Three hours in the morning, 9 a.m. to 12 noon. Three hours also in the afternoon, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. I train every day. No holiday. No birthday. No weekends." And the trainings were done years before the competition.