By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Olympian pole vaulter EJ Obiena matched his season-best and ruled the Orlen Copernicus Cup in Torun, Poland on Tuesday (early Wednesday in Manila).
The national and Asian record holder vaulted 5.81 meters on his last attempt to dominate the 10-player field that included fellow Tokyo Olympic athletes.
His feat equaled his performance at the Orlen Cup 2022 in Lodz, Poland two weeks ago which he also dominated.
Belgian Ben Broeders, a 2017 European U23 champion and Tokyo Olympian, came in second with a season-best 5.71m while 2016 Rio Olympics champion Thiago Braz also posted the same mark but settled for third after the countback.
Other finishers include Netherlands’ Menno Vloon (5.71m), Poland’s Piotr Lisek (5.61m), Netherlands’ Rutger Koppelaar (5.61m), Poland’s Pawel Wojciechowski (5.61m), China’s Huang Bokai (5.41m), Belarus’ Matvey Volkov (5.41m) and Great Britain’s Harry Coppell (5.41m).
Polish Robert Sobera failed to post a mark after flopping on all three attempts on his first height at 5.41m.
This was Obiena’s second title in five tournament appearances this month.
