Ernest John Obiena — REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
EJ Obiena is bracing for the forthcoming World Athletic Championships and he has no intentions of ending up second fiddle on a world platform.
He simply hopes the profitable elements for the hunt will go in his favor.
“I’m bodily able to competing on the market, however greater than half of the sport is psychological. And there’s quite a lot of issues that’s out of my management that do play a component in my performances,’’ stated the world’s third-ranked pole vaulter.
As a transparent podium competitor, there’s nothing extra comforting than to rock the sector by toppling his fiercest rivals—present world champion and record-holder Armand Duplantis of Sweden and American Chris Nielsen—at monitor and discipline’s showpiece occasion.
Obiena will come into the preliminaries on Aug. 23 on the Nationwide Athletics Centre in Budapest, Hungary, because the underdog, having misplaced to Duplantis and Nielsen within the worlds final yr in Eugene, Oregon.
However that bronze medal end put Obiena in a league of his personal the place no Filipino in athletics has even been.
To upset Duplantis
“A very good good friend of mine stated that if you win, it’s not at all times due to you, it may have been the remainder of the sector made errors. Once you lose, that’s on you. That’s the one factor that’s sure,’’ stated Obiena.
“After I lose, that’s on me. I made a mistake, I faltered, I did one thing unsuitable. But when I win, there’s quite a lot of totally different eventualities which may not essentially imply I did one thing to win,’’ added the reigning Asian champion and continental report holder at 6 meters.
The Olympic champion Duplantis owns the world report of 6.22 m and appears unreachable on the high of the world rankings with 1500 factors.
Obiena briefly took the No. 2 spot earlier than sliding again to 3rd (1399) after Nilsen, final yr’s silver medalist within the worlds, reclaimed his submit at second (1401) over every week in the past.
After the elimination spherical every week from now, Obiena is anticipated to determine within the finals on Aug. 26 the place different medal contenders equivalent to Individuals Sam Kendricks and KC Lightfoot and Australia’s Kurtis Marschall may steal the present.
Three PH aces
Obiena received’t be alone in his medal chase as Filipino-heritage tracksters Eric Cray and Robyn Lauren Brown likewise made it to Budapest.
The previous Asian champion Cray will race within the preliminary heats of the boys’s 400 m on Aug. 20 the place he’s a six-time Southeast Asian Video games champion and record-holder.
Brown, who struck gold within the current Asian championships in Bangkok, Thailand and punched the ticket to Hungary, takes the monitor within the preliminary heats of the ladies’s 400-m hurdles on Aug. 21.
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