[EDITOR'S NOTE: With this piece, we start a series honoring the biggest sports heroes of 2023 leading up to the announcement of the year's SPIN.ph Sportsman of the Year]
EJ OBIENA continued to make history in Philippine sports in 2023, and is on target to make another one next year in Paris.
The 28-year-old had a busy and productive 2023 wherein he reached new heights once again with feats highlighted by the Filipino pole vaulter finally reaching six meters - a standard targeted by the best in the world.
READ Gilas, Filipinas, Ginebra, La Salle weave biggest sports stories of 2023
He did the feat at the Bergen Jump Challenge in Bruggen, Norway last June, surpassing his previous personal best of 5.94m set in the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. Not only was Obiena’s feat his career best, he became the first Asian to reach the standard.
Even before joining the exclusive 6m club, Obiena reasserted himself as the best in the continent as he easily won gold at the Southeast Asian Games in Cambodia in May with a clearance of 5.65 meters, his third gold in the biennial regional meet.
A month later, Obiena captured the Asian Athletics Championships crown in June by registering 5.91m in Bangkok to tab his second crown in the event.
In his final competition of the year, Obiena tallied 5.90 meters to snare the gold medal in the Asian Games in Hangzhou last September for a new event record before a full house crowd at the Olympic Sports Centre.
The highlight of the year though would come in August during the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Competing with the world’s best, Obiena hit the six-meter mark once again to capture the silver, beating the likes of Kurtis Marschall and Christopher Nilsen. Due to the performance, Obiena surpassed Nilsen as the second-ranked pole vaulter in the world, again a first for an Asian pole vaulter.
Obiena eyes Paris Games medal
Obiena’s consistent performance also got him the early ticket to Paris Olympics where he will be vying for a podium finish.
Simeon Toribio is by far the only Filipino to win an athletics medal for the Philippines in the Olympics when he took bronze in the men's long jump of the 1932 Olympics. In Paris, expected to stand in his way for a gold is world record holder Mondo Duplantis of Sweden, who has a 6.23 mark in the books.
Regardless of what happen next year, it was truly a historic 2023 for Obiena.
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