ERNEST JOHN ‘EJ’ OBIENA has kept his continental men’s pole vault record intact making him a strong potential to win gold at the Aichi-Nagoya 20th Asian Games.
He’s gotten past one of the lowest performances of his career and is back leaping in the 5.80s, a positive sign that the Philippines would contend in the Asiad set September 19 to October 4.
Of late, Obiena’s been crediting his resurgence to his new coaches in a new training camp in Athens.
‘It’s good to see my improvements, but I must keep on going, keep on training and focusing on what I do,’ Obiena told the BusinessMirror on Friday. ‘There are still some details that need to be done.’
Obiena cleared 5.85 meters at the Meeting de Madrid in Spain last July 17, the first time since the Paris Olympic in August 2024 that he achieved that height.
Helping him out at the Athens Olympic Training Center in Greece is Marcin Sczeczepanski, a 35-year-old from Poland whose athlete career-best 5.20 meters doesn’t reflect what he’s accomplished as a coach-he coached Poland’s best pole vaulter in history to 6.02m and 10 medals in major championships and technical coach of Greek Emmanouil Karalis, bronze medalist in Paris and a member of the 6.00 club.
Obiena, ranked 14th in the world, is expected to face the same usual suspects who’ll be after his reign as Asian Games and Asian champion and record holder.
They are world No. 20 Seifeldin Abdelsalam of Qatar and Nos. 23 Huang Bokai, No. 24 Li Chenyang and No. 59 Lao Jie all from China as well as No. 68 Patsapong Amsam-ang of Thailand and even No. 83 Tomoya Karasawa of Japan.
Obiena, 30, is the best Asian pole vaulter at 6.0m, a height that Abdelsalam (personal best 5.75), Huang (5.85), Li (5.85), Yao (5.82), Amsam-ang (5.72) and Karasawa (5.66) are still aiming for.
He set an Asian Games record at 5.90m in Hangzhou 2023, beating Huang (5.65) and Saudi Arabia’s Hussain Al-Hizam (5.65) to the top of the podium-Amsam-ang could only do 5.55m for fourth place.
But Obiena got a scare from Amsam-ang at the Southeast Asian Games in Bangkok with the local bet yielding the gold medal via the countback after matching the Filipino star’s 5.65m effort.
The world championship silver medalist behind pole vault wonder Armand Duplantis in 2023 will be back leaping in Germany in the coming week-Halberstadter Hohenflug Internationales Stabhochsprung Meeting auf dem Domplatz on July 31 in Altstadt Hof and Internationale Stabhochsprungmon on August 5 at the Stadion in Jockrim.
The Philippines won five gold, two silver and 12 bronze medals at the Hangzho Games.