By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
EJ Obiena’s Paris Olympics preparation will be put to test anew on Tuesday, May 28 (early Wednesday in Manila) when he goes up against world No. 1 and world record holder Armand “Mondo” Duplantis in the 63rd Ostrava Golden Spike in Czech Republic.
This would be the second time that Obiena and Duplantis are competing in the same event this year after both saw action at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland last March.
In that indoor meet, Duplantis continued to dominate the field by capturing the gold medal with 6.05 meters while Obiena lost his touch and settled for ninth place with 5.65m.
A lot has happened since their last meeting, though. Duplantis went on to reset his own world record at the Wanda Diamond League Xiamen in China with a 6.24m performance, then followed it up a week later with another gold at the Yangtze Delta Athletics also in China with 6.00m.
In fact, Duplantis has never lost all his competitions this year, including the three indoor events prior to the world indoors.
The world No. 2 Obiena, for his part, has been silently training in the United States, where he competed and won the gold in the USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix in California with a 5.80m feat. Despite a non-podium finish in the world indoors, he ruled his previous two indoor events in Croatia and Germany.
The Ostrava Golden Spike would be an opportunity for Obiena to gauge his preparation especially against Duplantis, also the reigning Olympic champion, and fellow Paris-bound athlete Ben Broeders of Germany.
But standing their way to the podium are a list of athletes aching to reach the Olympic qualifying standard of 5.82m to qualify for Paris: 2020 Tokyo Olympians Ethan Cormont of France and Robert Sobera of Poland, Frenchman Anthony Ammirati, United States’ Matt Ludwig and Austin Miller, and hometown bets David Holy and Matej Scerba.
Aside from boosting his Olympic training in this Czech event, Obiena also hopes for another podium finish after copping the bronze medal last year behind Duplantis and Australian Kurtis Marschall.
After this tournament, Obiena will head to Oslo, Norway for the Oslo Bislett Games on Thursday, May 30, then to Stockholm, Sweden for the Bauhaus-Galan Wanda Diamond League.
