TOKYO Olympics-bound pole vaulter EJ Obiena gets his first acid test of the year when he competes in the World Athletics Diamond League in Monaco on Saturday.
Ranked 16th in the world with a season-best 5.45 meters he cleared last week for a silver medal in an Italian meet, Obiena will join a handful of the world’s best jumpers, majority of them would be his rivals in the Tokyo Games next year.
The eight-man list includes world record-holder Armand Duplantis of Sweden, reigning Olympic champion Thiago Braz of Brazil and 2017 world champion Sam Kendricks of the US.
Also in the field are Ben Broaders of Belgium, Thibaut Collet and Valentin Lavillenie of France and Claudio Stecchi of Italy.
Duplantis carries the best season record of 5.94m. He set the world record of 6.17m last February in Poland. It would be Obiena’s third Diamond League appearance. His best performance came in Doha last year with 5.46m.
All athletes are required to undergo swab testing before the competition.
Three days after Monaco, Obiena will join two fellow Tokyo-bound Olympians in a virtual tournament that will be streamed live.
OJ de los Santos, meanwhile, made another statement victory by shocking to top-ranked Eduardo Garcia of Portugal to win the Athletes’ E Tournament on Wednesday.
The 30-year-old karateka, who was dropped from the national team to the 30th Southeast Asian Games last year, edged world No.1 Garcia by a the skin of his teeth, 25-24.9, to capture his fourth gold medal in a series of virtual tournaments.
It was payback time for De los Santos, who lost to Garcia in the adidas Karate World Open last month. The Filipino, representing the International Shotokan Karate Federation, was already declared the winner but the decision was reversed in favor of Garcia after the organizers announced a scoring glitch.
That defeat was de los Santos’s second setback to the Portuguese after the SportsData E Tournament World Series in May.
In the semifinals of the tournament organized by Russia, the world No.2 De los Santos beat Alfredo Bustamate of the US, 24.6-24.5.
De los Santos also topped the Balkan Open last week, the Korokotta Cup in June and the Palestine Cup in April.