Filipino pole vaulter EJ Obiena merely bankrupt the fresh national number (again): The guy talks Tokyo Olympics, Mondo Duplantis, and you may impact the brand new love from the Philippines within private chat.

EJ Obiena try cheerful as he pops up with the videocall. “Disappointed, was just chat room online jamaican creating my Covid decide to try,” according to him, “it is bad, therefore which is great.”

Private! EJ Obiena sets sights towards the Philippines’ basic actually Olympic gold: “That is the goal”

This is the current great inside the a powerful blast of good development to have EJ whoever unbelievable interior 12 months has given answer to a great outside year for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Video game merely days out.

Obiena keeps repeatedly broken federal details and you can catapulted himself into the the top of podium more than industry champion Sam Kendricks and you can Olympic gold medallist Thiago Braz.

To the Obiena place another type of Filipino checklist of five.85m, winning this new Jump and Travel competition inside the Mossingen, Germany, one to mark surpassed his or her own listing of five.81 he invest for the Chiari, Italy – a dot one made your the first Filipino to help you be eligible for Tokyo 2020.

Brand new Olympic postponement gave Obiena a-year to be effective more complicated and go higher now he is hiking continuously towards magic 6m draw, putting themselves about reckoning on podium at rescheduled in the summertime out of 2021.

That it pole vaulter is the pride away from Filipino track-and-field in fact it is when you look at the no doubt on the his objective within Tokyo Games:

“Profit the new silver, that’s it kid. That is a really tough objective to attain, but that is the target. That is why I am doing all of this, to not get second rather than to acquire third. to victory it.” – EJ Obiena

Would be to Obiena do it he’d get to be the first previously Filipino to help you win a keen Olympic silver medal, forever creating their term to the Olympic lore of a country excited about recreation.

Read on because of it exclusive interviews toward Philippine eagle, out-of their Olympic aims to brand new Filipino food he misses (Eg new coconut drinking water, mangoes and Jollibbee!), how Covid almost generated him surrender and go back home, and his 75-year-dated advisor Vitaly Petrov exactly who pretty sure him to keep going.

I in addition to hear about just how he is in charge of his psychological state far from home, the latest family he’s produced, his wife who has got together with a runner, together with overwhelming help the guy seems of Filipinos all over.

How highest can be EJ Obiena wade?

5.62m (5th) on Karlsruhe Industry Indoor Concert tour, 5.80m (1st) within ISTAF Berlin, 5.68m (1st) for the Dortmund, 5.60m (5th) within WA interior Trip Gold in Lievin, 5.86m (2nd) on Orlen Mug inside Lodz, 5.80m (3rd) within Copernicus Cup, Torun.

Today he’s their sights seriously interested in the fresh Far-eastern number of 5.93, but also for EJ it isn’t about new numbers.

“So i understand this level goal top that we must achieve but at the same time its not all race gifts the new chance of you to build you to definitely bar, you understand. With regards to competition, I desire more on this new pub that’s put right now.

“Going into competition, when you consider the list and you will some body leaps more you to listing, you are essentially such as for example, oh s. I want to jump greater than one?

“So i believe a knowledgeable kind of mindset going into race is which i have to be the guy who leaps more than the rest of the industry. We manage successful the fresh meets.”

His outdoor seasons began impressively when he removed 5.80 so you can greatest the latest podium within the June, he then cleaned you to Olympic fundamental once more on 2021 FBK Games throughout the Netherlands, in which he stepped up to your podium at the rear of just Mondo, which cleaned six.10m.