By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Pole vaulter EJ Obiena returns to competition Friday amid his unsettled row with the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (Patafa) by seeing action in the ISTAF Indoor Berlin tournament in Germany.
The competition is the first in Obiena’s indoor season calendar as he is also scheduled to compete in four more events this month.
Obiena, who holds the national and Asian record of 5.93 meters, will be up against a stacked field led by reigning world record holder and Olympic champion Armand Duplantis of Sweden.
Duplantis opened his 2022 season last week with a gold medal at the Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe in Germany after vaulting to a new meet record of 6.02m.
Also in the lineup are fellow Tokyo Olympians KC Lightfoot of the United States, Germany’s Oleg Zernikel, Torben Blech and Bo Kanda Lita Baehre, and Poland’s Piotr Lisek.
Rutger Koppelaar of the Netherlands, who competed in the 2019 world championships, will also see action.
After the Berlin meet, Obiena will head to Uppsala, Sweden for the International Pole Vault Invitational on Feb. 9, followed by the Orlen Cup in Loz, Poland.
He will then head to Lievin, France for the Meeting Hauts-De-France on Feb. 17, followed by the Orlen Copernicus Cup in Torun, Poland on Feb. 22.
