EJ Obiena starts quest for Olympic glory

Asia's best and world no. 2 EJ Obiena of the Philippines will finally plunge into action in the 2024 Paris Olympics when he struts his stuff in the men's pole vault qualification round at 4:10 p.m. on Saturday at the Stade de France. 

The 28-year-old ace is in Group A where he is pitted against several familiar foes like top-ranked Mondo Duplantis of Sweden, who also owns the world record of 6.23 meters, as well as Sam Kendricks of USA, Kurtis Marschall of Australia, and Thibaut Collet of host France. 

Athletes who met the qualification standard of 5.80 meters or at least the 12 best performers will qualify for the finals round set on August 6 at 1 a.m. 

Obiena, the Asian record holder of 6.0 meters, recently revealed his physical struggles in the build-up to the Paris Games, but assured the supporters he is all ready to step on to his second straight Olympics stint. 

Obiena, though, is hoping for a better run this time around as back in the Tokyo Olympics just three years ago, he failed to reach the podium after finishing just at joint 11th spot with a 5.70m output. Duplantis seized the gold while Christopher Nilsen of USA and Olympic record holder Thiago Braz claimed the silver and bronze, respectively. 

In that three-year span, Obiena has shown a lot of progress in his game. 

He copped gold medals in the Southeast Asian Games and Asian Games in 2023 then claimed the silver in the World Athletics Championship in the same year. 

In 2024, Obiena also won a number of competitions, highlighted by back-to-back first place finishes in 6th Irena Szewinska Memorial and Czeslaw Cybulski Memorial last June in Poland. 

—JKC, GMA Integrated News