MANILA, Philippines, March 15 ------ EJ Obiena continues to battle with inconsistency as he wrapped up the indoor season outside the podium. In a meet featuring the best in the men’s pole vault including world record holder Armand Duplantis, Obiena placed eighth in the Mondo Classic in Uppsala, Sweden.
Obiena cleared 5.65m before he got the boot early as he failed to match his season best of 5.80m. Starting the event with promise, Obiena hurdled the first two heights of 5.50m and 5.65m in a single try but stumbled at 5.80m, using up all his three attempts.
Duplantis did not disappoint in his home meet as he vaulted past 6.05m to claim his third gold medal of the year. With the gold in the bag, the reigning two-time Olympic champion even tried to go for 6.28m for a chance to reset the world record for the 12th time but to no avail. Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis snagged silver with 6.00m, while the USA’s Sam Kendricks bagged bronze with a season-best 5.90m as the three medalists in the Paris Games made up the podium anew. Karalis has been on a tear since he edged Obiena for the bronze in the Olympics, with the indoor season seeing the 25-year-old Greek clear the six-meter bar thrice and set a career best of 6.02m.
Meanwhile, the 29-year-old Obiena has yet to rediscover his old form after a spine injury forced him to cut his 2024 campaign short. Out of his six events of the year so far, Obiena reached the podium thrice, finishing first in the Meeting Metz Moselle Athlelor in France and the ORLEN Copernicus Cup in Poland then second in the International Springer-Meeting Cottbus in Germany. His other appearances saw him land seventh in the ISTAF Indoor Dusseldorf in Germany and ninth in the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais in France.
Obiena will miss the World Indoor Championships scheduled from March 21 to 23 in Nanjing, China, after failing to meet the entry standard of 5.85m within the qualification period that ended on March 9. Instead, Obiena has turned his focus on the outdoor season as he gears up for the World Athletics Championships, the Asian Athletics Championships, and the Southeast Asian Games.
Source: rappler.com
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