FORTY-EIGHT days to the Tokyo Olympics and Ernest John “EJ” Obiena knows he’s got some tinkering to do with the pole vault following his gold medal-winning feat at the Gothenburg Athletics Grand Prix in Sweden the other day.
“I am happy to win…it’s not good, but it’s not bad [either],” Obiena told BusinessMirror on Friday. “But it proved that I still need a lot of things to work on.”
It wasn’t bad because he won gold, in the process relegating his training partner and buddy, Olympic record holder Thiago Braz de Silva of Brazil, to the silver medal.
It wasn’t good because his leap of 5.70 meters was off his personal best of 5.86m and his season best of 5.80m.
De Silva was even worse with his 5.65m effort, way lower than his Olympic record of 6.03m he set in Rio 2016.
Could it be perhaps that Gothenburg was their first outdoor competition in almost eight months?
Obiena didn’t say anything about the effects of competing indoors for some time and going outdoors after that. And he also preferred not to reveal what recalibrations his body needs in time for the July 23 to August 8 Olympics.
“It will be between me and my coach,” he said. “I am doing my best to improve my performance.”
Obiena has made the World Pole Vault Centre in Formia, Italy, home for more than two years—including pandemic year 2020—training under the meticulous eyes of the world-renowned Ukranian Coach Vitaly Petrov.
He only went back home in November 2019 to win the men’s pole vault gold medal at the Southeast Asian Games.
The 25-year-old Obiena detoured from pole vault in his conversation with BusinessMirror and expressed confidence about his fellow Olympics qualifier having what it takes to make a statement in Tokyo—if not win the country’s first-ever gold medal.
“This is the best field we have, the best team we’re going to send in any Olympics,” he said. “It’s not about quantity, but about quality of the field because we have world champions there.”
“They just did not qualify, but they earned it in their respective sports,” he said. “And I think there’re going to be more Filipinos to qualify for the Games.”
The Philippines have two world champions who are seeing action in Tokyo—gymnast Carlos Yulo and female boxer Nesthy Petecio. Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz also owns a silver medal from the Rio Games four years ago.
Also qualified for the Olympics so far are boxers Eumir Felix Marcial, Irish Magno and Carlo Paalam, rower Cris Nievarez and taekwondo jin Kurt Bryan Barbosa.
Filipino athletes are also hoping to qualify in karate, skateboarding and archery.