By REYNALD MAGALLON
Filipino pole vault star EJ Obiena saw a slight dip in his world ranking, sliding down to No.3 after holding the second spot for a year, following his near miss in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In a latest update to the rankings by the World Athletics, veteran American pole vaulter Sam Kendricks, who also bagged the silver medal in the Olympics overtook Obiena for the second spot and behind the untouchable top ranked Armand Duplantis of Sweden.
Duplantis finished with the gold medal and a new world record of 6.25m in Paris while Greek pole vaulter Emmanoouil Karalis joined him and Kendricks at the podium after beating Obiena for the bronze medal via a countback.
Obiena, who first held the No.2 spot on the world rankings in July last year, finished fourth after failing to clear 5.95m.
Karalis made the huge leap from the eighth spot in the previous rankings to now at the world No. 4.
Obiena later on revealed in a press conference a day after his pole vault competition that his preparations for the Paris Olympics was bothered by a nagging back injury.
“It’s been a very tough season for me overall. I felt like I was getting maybe two, three sessions before the Olympics that I started to be able to stitch together myself and got a good barrier of what I could do,” said Obiena.
“And I think it definitely showed in the qualifiers and maybe even in the final, the lack of consistency and repetitions because of all these problems,” he added.
Obiena, however, still had plenty of time to reclaim his spot in the global ladder as he intends to continue participating in the Diamond League and hopefully, put a strong end to the season.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Aug. 12, Obiena shared that he had already moved on from his loss in Paris and assured that he will be back in training.
“I commit to everyone now, I am back in training, I am back in the game, and I am going to attack the rest of the season and make you proud. You are going to see more from me, and see the Philippine Flag raised and raised on a global stage,” he wrote.
