IT’S another day in the bank for Ernest John ‘EJ’ Obiena as the two-time Olympian pocketed his ninth gold medal of the outdoor season at the ISTAF championships on Monday at the Olympiastadon in Berlin.
The world No. 12 got the gold at 5.82 meters that was lower than his season best 5.90m, but it was enough to stave off the challenge of Belgium’s Ylio Philtjens and France’s Robin Emig who finished 2-3 at 5.72m after the countback.
Obiena didn’t make himself available for an interview this time, but his confidante, Jim Lafferty, expressed optimism about the 30-year-old’s defense of the gold medal in the Aichi-Nagoya 20th Asian Games later this month.
‘I think there are good odds we will see 6.0 meters by the Asian Games,’ Lafferty said.
Obiena won his Asian Games gold medal in Hanzhou three years ago at 5.90m and his personal best-an Asian record-also in 2023 at the world championships in Budapest where he got silver behind Armand Duplantis.
He now has six gold medals outdoors from Czeslaw Cybulski Memorial last June in Poznan (Poland), Raiffeisen Austrian Open last July in Eisenstadt (Austria) and Halberstadter, Internationale Stabhochsprungmon all in Germany and Golden Sand in Poland in August.
All his outdoor golds and two silvers came under new coach, Poland’s Marcin Szczepanski, in a new training environment in Athens-he also got three indoor gold medals.
Obiena got to 5.62m after two attempts, cleared 5.82m but failed thrice at 5.97m in Berlin.
The Berlin gold came a few days after he made the 2027 world championships standard of 5.90m at the Zurich Diamond League in Lausanne.