Obiena crashes out of World Championship

Sports

EJ Obiena suffered a forgettable performance in his fourth World Championship appearance as he failed to make it to the gold-medal round of the men’s pole vault event over the weekend at the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo.

Things started well for the 29-year-old Obiena when he skipped the five-meter bar and easily cleared the 5.55m.

That proved to be the only bright moment for Obiena as he failed to clear the 5.70m and 5.75m.

As a result, Obiana could only muster 18th place in the elite 36-man field. It was a disappointing finish for Obiena as it was in the same tournament that he recorded his personal-best of six meters that netted him silver in the 2023 Budapest edition.

Obiena will try to rebound from the dismal performances when he competes in the Atletang Ayala World Pole Vault Challenge in Makati City on Sunday, September 21.

While Obiena struggled, Mondo Duplantis lived up to his lofty builling, keeping his bid for third-straight World Championship gold alive after making it to the final round, which will be played on Monday night, September 15.

Also making it to the final round were Greek Emmanouil Karalis, American Sam Kendricks, Norwegian Sondre Guttormsen, Australian Kurtis Marschall, Turkish Ersu Sasma, French Renaud Lavillenie, Thibaut Collet, and Ethan Cormont, Dutch Menno Vloon, Qatar’s Seifeldin Abdesalam, and German Bo Baehre.(CCM)