Filipino pole vaulter EJ Obiena simply bankrupt the federal listing (again): The guy conversations Tokyo Olympics, Mondo Duplantis, and feeling the brand new like regarding Philippines within our private chat.
EJ Obiena is cheerful when he comes up towards videocall. “Disappointed, was only starting my personal Covid shot,” he says, “it’s negative, so that’s great.”
This is the current very good news in the a stronger blast of a great development to have EJ whoever unbelievable interior year gave solution to an incredible backyard season with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Online game only weeks aside.
Obiena has actually many times broken federal records and you can catapulted themselves toward the upper podium more business champ Sam Kendricks and you will Olympic silver medallist Thiago Braz.
To your Obiena place an alternative Filipino list of five.85m, winning the newest Plunge and Fly competition in the Mossingen, Germany, you to definitely draw surpassed his personal checklist of 5.81 that he place in into the Chiari, Italy – a mark one to produced your the initial Filipino in order to qualify for Tokyo 2020.
Personal! EJ Obiena kits landscapes into the Philippines’ earliest actually ever Olympic gold: “That is the mission”
This new Olympic postponement gave Obiena a-year to get results more complicated and you will go higher and now he is climbing continuously to your magic 6m mark, putting themselves regarding the reckoning to your podium at rescheduled in the summer out-of 2021.
It pole-vaulter ‘s the pleasure from Filipino track and field which can be inside the without doubt regarding their objective on Tokyo Games:
“Profit the gold, that’s it boy. That’s an extremely hard goal to attain, but that is the target. That is why I’m undertaking this, to not rating next and not to get 3rd. to earn they.” – EJ Obiena
Is always to Obiena do it however end up being the basic actually Filipino to profit a keen Olympic gold medal, forever composing his term to your Olympic lore of a nation excited about recreation.
Read on for this personal interview toward Philippine eagle, away from his Olympic is designed to brand new Filipino eating the guy misses (Instance fresh coconut drinking water, mangoes and you may Jollibbee!), just how Covid nearly generated him give-up and you can go home, and his 75-year-dated mentor Vitaly Petrov who convinced him to store heading.
We together with read about just how he is in charge of their mental health far from home, the latest family unit members he could be produced, their wife who’s also an athlete, while the challenging support the guy feels off Filipinos all over.
Exactly how higher is also EJ Obiena wade?
5.62m (5th) at Karlsruhe Business Indoor Journey, 5.80m (1st) during the ISTAF Berlin, 5.68m (1st) from inside the Dortmund, 5.60m (5th) from the WA interior Tour Silver inside Lievin, 5.86m (2nd) within Orlen Glass into the Lodz, 5.80m (3rd) within Copernicus Cup, Torun.
Today he has their places set on the newest Western number regarding 5.93, but for EJ it’s just not about the new numbers.
“And so i fully grasp this top purpose peak that we want to go but at the same time not all competition merchandise brand new opportunity for that make online dating vs barer you to club, you realize. With regards to competition, We attract on the fresh bar that is set now.
“Going into race, if you think about this new listing and you may someone leaps more than you to checklist, you happen to be fundamentally such as for instance, oh s. I have to diving more than one?
“Therefore i thought a knowledgeable particular therapy starting battle is simply that we should be the guy exactly who jumps greater than the remainder career. We manage winning the new matches.”
Their backyard 12 months began impressively as he cleaned 5.80 so you can better the fresh new podium within the Summer, then cleared you to Olympic simple once again in the 2021 FBK Game on Netherlands, where the guy stepped up to your podium at the rear of simply Mondo, just who eliminated six.10m.