By REYNALD MAGALLON
Filipino pole vault star EJ Obiena is not making any excuses for his failed medal bid in the 2024 Paris Olympics but admitted that a nagging back injury cost him the shot at possibly ending the country’s 88-year drought in the athletics events in the world’s grandest sporting event.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Aug. 7, Obiena revealed that he had been dealing with the injury that particularly affected the lumbar area of his spine which resulted in pain on his back and restricted movements.
While Obiena looked good in the finals – still clearing 5.90 meters on his way to a fourth place finish which was a significant improvement to his 11th place in Tokyo, the 28-year-old Tondo native believed it certainly affected his preparations.
“I don’t think it hindered me, at least on the day of the Paris Olympics. If I’m analyzing everything without any emotion to this period and the reality of things, I think it did affect me but not on the competition. It affected my consistency. It affected my overall program going to Paris,” said Obiena.
Longtime advisor and good friend Jim Lafferty, who was with Obiena during the press conference, revealed that the injury disrupted Obiena’s preparations to the point that he had to stop his training and fly to Italy to get a procedure done on his back.
Barely two weeks left before the Paris Olympics, Obiena couldn’t even run with the pole according to Lafferty.
“He left the training camp, flew to Rome, met with the doctors, had the procedure done, then we put him back on a plane (to France). He then had to take a 48-hour recovery period from the shot, and only then did he start to gradually work his way back,” said Lafferty.
The injury, turned out, was not entirely new to Obiena having dealt with it two years ago before a procedure called “denervation” allowed him to compete at a high level. The injury, however, suddenly recurred this year and has been bothering him since the indoor season.
“I didn’t expect this to happen this year. But in sports, you’ll never know. We push ourselves, our bodies to the limit. It’s definitely been rough since right after the indoors (indoor season), even the indoors. Just things after things and things after things. It’s the reality of it,” said Obiena.
Lacking the repetitions he needed to get the feel of the pole and making the jump, Obiena did perform sloppily, evident during the qualifications before ultimately falling short off the 5.95m mark, a height he believes he’s capable of overcoming if he had enough preparations.
“I don’t use that to say, ‘Okay, that’s why the outcome was short of a medal.’ I truly believe that I was capable of doing that. It’s what makes it painful even more. I was that close. All things considered, I was that close,” said Obiena.
