MANILA, Philippines, March 11 ------ World No. 4 pole vaulter EJ Obiena will compete in the Mondo Classic at the IFU Arena in Uppsala, Sweden, on Thursday with the mindset of building up for the coming outdoor season where he begins his campaign in Xiamen, China, on April 26.
The Mondo Classic, an indoor event, will gather the world’s best vaulters in a gala format on a track centrally located in the stadium to allow the audience a close view with music and lights for an entertaining evening. It’s the fourth staging of the competition named after world No. 1 Mondo Duplantis who’s looking to set new records in his home country. “I’ll still go to the Mondo Classic but I’m not stressing over it,” said Obiena. “I’m treating it as a tune-up. I feel fine and to be honest, my numbers have been improving but I’m not showing it in competition.”
After more than four months recovering from a stress fracture in his spine, Obiena returned to action last January, trying to qualify for the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Nanjing, China. He joined six competitions but failed to clear the qualifying mark of 5.85m. “I started the indoors thinking I had time to be ready as typically the qualification period is one year,” said Obiena. “For the first time, the qualification is not by ranking and it started last September. I only had a window of about three weeks.” His sixth attempt was in Estonia last Feb. 22. He finished first but jumped below 5.85m, clearing 5.65m. “I went to Estonia in hopes that the result would be valid,” he said. “It was their nationals. Unfortunately, we don’t have an indoor nationals. In Europe, the circuit has stopped because of the European indoors so technically, even though I still had time to qualify, I had no competitions to join. I’ve been exhausted trying to find competitions.”
Obiena said there’s not much difference in vaulting indoors or outdoors. “Indoors should be easier as we don’t need to manage wind or rain,” he said. “Ambiance is not a factor. For me, the outdoor season starts with the Diamond League in Xiamen.” The Diamond League consists of 14 series events where athletes compete for points to qualify for the two-day Final in Zurich on Aug. 27-28. A gold medal in a series event has a prize of $10,000 and in the final, the champion earns $30,000.
Source: philstar.com
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