Consistency is the key.
Olympian pole vaulter Ernest John “EJ” Obiena said this in his bid to maintain and even surpass his 6.0-meter record in three major competitions.
This means, the 27-year-old Obiena has to refine his technique whenever he trains for a meet with his Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov.
Petrov, who has been teaching and training Obiena for the last eight years in Formia, Italy, has been instructing him how to do the 20-step move, wherein he needs to pick up speed during his strides towards the pit, before making his jump to the crossbar — all in 20 steps.
“There’s a lot of room for improvement. To jump up to 5.85 meters should now be regular. It should be consistent. I arrived at 6.0 meters because I was consistent at the 5.80-meter level,” said Obiena, who talked about the things he needs to do the next time he participates in a meet during Saturday’s weekly program of former Philippine Sports Commission chairman Noli Eala’s “Power and Play.”
Obiena is now preparing to jump higher and eclipse his milestone 6-meter performance in the Bergen Jump Challenge in Norway three weeks ago.
“I need to be consistent with my 20 steps. It’s a work in progress. And I only used it in competition two times,” added Obiena.
Focus for Obiena in the coming days is to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics as soon as possible.
Qualification events for the Olympiad are set to begin on July 1.
“The way I want it to go is to qualify straight up. Qualification starts on July 1. I will already compete on the second day of July in Stockholm in the Diamond League. If I jump over 5.82m if I’m not mistaken, then I should already be qualified,” he said.
Obiena also has his eyes on the prize in the Asian Athletics Championship in July, the World Athletics in August and the Asian Games in September.
Hoping that there won’t be any setbacks and injuries, Obiena is crossing his fingers that his plans to compete in all of these tournaments can go without any hitches as he aims for early qualification.
“I’m indeed planning to go to these championships because these would give me points for my ranking. Also, these are very important for the country. These are the medals that, at the end of my career, would be the ones probably standing out so I’m gunning for them,” he said.
Obiena finished with a bronze medal in the Oslo Bislett Games in Norway recently after clearing the 5.81-meter mark behind the eventual champion and world no. 1 Armand Duplantis of Sweden, who jumped 6.01 meters.