By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
EJ Obiena’s 2024 Paris Olympics preparations will be put to a test on Sunday, March 3, when he and world No. 1 Armand “Mondo” Duplantis of Sweden vie in the star-studded 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland.
The pole vault event is scheduled at 7 p.m. (3 a.m. on March 4 in Manila) with the world No. 2 national record-holder facing fellow Olympians in what is expected to be a preview of the Paris Games.
A podium finish for Obiena will put him in the history books as the first Filipino to win a medal in the both indoor and outdoor competitions of the global showpiece.
The pride of Tondo has already won two medals in the outdoor – a bronze in 2022 and a silver in 2023.
And winning a medal in the indoor is another challenge the 28-year-old is looking to hurdle to further embellish his status.
The tournament is more than a gauge for Obiena on how he will fare in Paris, with five other fellow Olympic qualifiers also seeing action in the tournament.
Apart from Duplantis, who aims not only to defend the title he won in the last edition held in Belgrade, Serbia in 2022 but also to shatter his own world record of 6.22 meters, also seeing action are world No. 3 Chris Nilsen of the United States, who won the bronze in the previous edition, and Paris Games qualifiers Thibaut Collet of France, Kurtis Marschall of Australia, Menno Vloon of the Netherlands, Piotr Lisek of Poland, Ersu Sasma of Turkey, and Emmanouil Karalis of Greece.
World No. 5 Sam Kendricks is also expected to give the competition a run for its money, as well as world No. 8 Ben Broeders of Belgium, world No. 22 Robert Sobera of Poland and world No. 22 Austin Miller of the US.
Meanwhile, Fil-American Lauren Hoffman failed in her bid to advance to the semifinals of the women’s 400 meters after finishing fifth in her heats and 21st overall on Friday, March 1.
The 24-year-old national record-holder timed 54.66 seconds, three ticks slower than top qualifier Lieke Klaver of the Netherlands, who clocked 51.31sec.
Hoffman’s performance was far slower than her previous marks, when she reset the Philippine indoor record twice the past two months — at the Clemson Bob Pollock Invitational where she posted 53.91sec last January and at the Clemson Tiger Paw Invitational where she finished 53.71sec early last month.
Fil-Spaniard John Cabang is competing in the men’s 60m hurdles at posting time.
