ERNEST JOHN OBIENA settled for a silver medal in his first pole vault competition since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, finishing behind a training partner from Brazil who owns the Olympic record in the event.
Traveling north from his training camp in Formia, the 24-year-old Obiena shrugged off rust from months of inactivity and cleared 5.45 meters in the 13th Triveneto International Meeting in Trieste, Italy, on Sunday.
His effort was a mere 5 millimeters lower that the 5.50m gold medal-clinching effort of Brazil’s Thiago Braz.
Braz set the Olympic record of 6.03m before his countrymen in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Those numbers, however, still pales in comparison with the world record of 6.18m which American-born Swedish Armand Duplantis set in Glasgow last February.
Obiena, so far the only Filipino track and field athlete to qualify for the postponed Tokyo Olympics, made his medal-clinching mark in his second attempt. He tried 5.55m and 5.60m but failed.
Italy’s Max Mandusic took bronze with 5.35m.
It was Obiena’s first tournament since he won the gold medal at the 30th Southeast Asian Games last December. He was supposed to compete in the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in China but flew back to Italy because of the virus outbreak.
Obiena and Braz are training pals at the World Pole Vault Centre in Formia. Both are preparing for the World Athletics Diamond League in Monaco on August 14. He will later join two fellow Tokyo-bound Olympians in a virtual tournament that will be streamed live.