Obiena shakes off nerve-wracking start at Paris Olympics

The 28-year old Filipino vaulter EJ Obiena is back in the Olympics and made heart-stopping jumps as he qualified for the finals of the men’s pole vault. 

The World’s No. 2 men’s pole vaulter was the 13th jumper among 15 athletes from Group A. For the first height of 5.40M, Obiena passed along with World’s No. 1 Armando Duplantis of Sweden, and Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis. 

Before the start of the Olympics, EJ Obiena admitted that he has been enduring physical problems. He underwent multiple medical procedures to compete in his optimum condition, and he surely exerted his best efforts coming into the competition.

His opening height was 5.60M, and he failed in his first attempt after he hit the bar going up. For his second attempt, he asked for a few adjustments, but hit the bar on the way up once again. This left Obiena frustrated, and decided to pass on the 5.60M jump and use his last jump attempt for 5.70M.

The entire country held their breaths as Obiena jumped at the 5.70M-mark, releasing more than just a sigh of relief when he cleared. He became one of the leaders as many have struggled to clear the height within their first attempts. 

For the 5.75M jump, EJ Obiena only needed one attempt to clear the bar as well. This qualified him for the Finals of the men’s pole vault, obtaining a 7th-place ranking among the 12 qualifiers. 

In an interview with One Sports, Obiena shared how stressed he was before he made the final jump. “My dream was on the line on one jump, and it’s as stressful as it can be.” He also added how he just took it easy, relaxed, and trusted his coach, who made the call to pass on 5.60M and use his last attempt for 5.70M.

“After that 70, I didn’t want to express so much emotions, but, dude, 3 years, man, that was on line. 3 years of things I’ve gone through and everything, it was on the line on that jump. So I guess it just bursted out of me,” he said regarding his emotional celebration after clearing the 5.70M jump.

Moving forward, he believes that he just has to do his thing by making the right decisions every day, and trusting his coach within every performance. Obiena will compete in the finals with 11 other athletes for an Olympic podium to take home.