By Jean Malanum | Philippine News Agency
Tennis star Alexandra Eala and gymnastics’ golden boy Carlos Edriel Yulo will both receive the 2025 Athlete of the Year award in the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Annual Awards Night at Diamond Hotel Manila in Ermita on Feb. 16.
Eala made history at the Thailand Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in December 2025 by winning the country’s first women’s singles gold medal after 26 years.
Yulo, first named PSA Athlete of the Year in 2024 after a double-gold performance at the Paris Olympics, bagged a fourth straight gold medal in floor exercise at the 2025 Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in South Korea, where he also bagged bronze in parallel bars, vault, and individual all-around.
The traditional sports gala by the country’s oldest media organization, held in partnership with San Miguel Corporation, was originally slated on Feb. 2 but has been moved to Feb. 16 due to unavoidable circumstances.
It will be the first time in 22 years that the PSA named a male and female co-Athletes of the Year since legendary boxer Manny Pacquiao and golfer Jennifer Rosales shared the honor in 2004.
“Their exemplary performances on the international stage and more importantly, the way they have inspired countless young athletes to chase their own path for greatness, are enough reasons to crown both Alex and Carlos as the year’s top performers in sports,” PSA president Francis Ochoa, sports editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said in a news release Friday.
Born and raised on Leveriza Street in Manila, Malate, near Rizal Memorial Sports Center, Yulo stomped his way back to the 53rd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Indonesia, winning the vault and placing third in floor exercise.
Eala, a graduate of the Rafa Nadal Academy in Spain, registered several firsts in Philippine tennis history, including breaking into the world’s Top 50.
Ranked No. 140 and given a wild card at the WTA 1000 Miami Open, Eala beat former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko (second round), reigning Australian Open winner and No. 5 Madison Keys (third round), and five-time Grand Slam champion and World No. 2 Iga Swiatek (quarterfinals) before losing to American Jesica Pegula in the semifinals.
She became the first Filipino in the Open era to play in the Wimbledon singles main draw, earned her first WTA singles title at the Guadalajara 125 Open in Mexico, and scored a Grand Slam breakthrough as the first Filipino in the Open era to win a match at the US Open in New York after prevailing over No. 14 seed Clara Tauson.
