EJ Obiena had a rough 10 days before his performance in Paris.
You could see it on EJ Obiena’s face after he missed his third and final attempt to clear 5.95 meters at the Paris 2024 men’s pole vault final. Falling into the landing area with the dislodged bar coming down just the same, the disappointment was apparent in the Filipino athlete’s expression.
However, Filipino fans were quick to remind EJ that he had done them all proud, with outpours of positivity on social media. After all, making it to the finals and securing a fourth-place finish is by all means be a cause for celebration, especially as this is a significant leap from EJ’s 11th-place finish in Tokyo just three years before.
But there was far more to EJ’s performance in Paris than it simply being a bad day.
As EJ revealed in a virtual press conference a couple days after the final, he had been silently going through a major physical battle leading up to the Games that greatly hampered his preparations.
Behind the scenes
A few days before the Paris Olympics, EJ Obiena published a post on social media that already revealed that he had been dealing with some physical struggles, though he kept the description vague and did not get into any specifics, as to not compromise his position in the Games in any way.
Now, with the 2024 Paris Olympics behind him, EJ and his team were finally able to reveal what he had been alluding to.
In a press conference, EJ and his team revealed that he had been dealing with a recurring issue in the lumbar area of his spine. With issues in his connective tissues, his sensory nerves were triggered and this caused muscle spasming, major pain, and ultimately, an “inability to vault,” as EJ’s mentor James Michael Lafferty shared in a virtual press conference.
Lafferty further explained, “Two years ago this started and he had a procedure done called a denervation, where they basically get in the nerve that’s causing all the issues, it allows him to compete…The nerve does come back, and unfortunately, it grew back at a rate that he started to feel everything again in 2024.”
Given his condition, this led to inconsistencies in his indoor season, not just in performances, but as well as his training sessions, as he required more days off for his recovery. EJ added that he was in the United States when he first started feeling it again. “If you watched closely to the competition in LA, every time I walked to the pit, I was very slow…I can’t move right away after I jump, it spasms,” EJ explained.
This greatly frustrated the Filipino, especially as they were unable to pinpoint the cause of it. And the pain continued up until he arrived in Paris.
As Lafferty shared, “Ten to 12 days before the Olympic Games, it got so bad that he was unable to vault. He couldn’t even run with the pole.”
With this, EJ needed to undergo a complicated procedure that would minimize the pain he was experiencing. His only other option was to withdraw from the competition — but knowing EJ, that was a path he was not likely to take.
To give himself the best chance at competing, Lafferty revealed, “We put EJ on a plane to Italy. [Over a 24-hour period], 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.”
Because of this, EJ only had one proper workout session before the men’s pole vault qualification round.
“I didn’t expect this to happen this year,” EJ said, reflecting on the struggles that hampered his preparations for the Games.
“But you know, sports — you never know. We push ourselves, we push our bodies to the limits, and things happen. Unfortunately, this year, it’s definitely been rough since after indoors, and even indoors, it was just things after things…It’s the reality of it. But I don’t use that to say the outcome was short of a medal. I believe I’m still fully capable of doing it, I still believe I’m fully capable of winning that, and that’s what makes it painful even more. It’s that I was that close.”
Reflecting on Paris
Given this condition, EJ Obiena has suffered from varying degrees of physical pain throughout his competitions all year.
As he explained, “Basically if it’s in the bad days, you can’t run. You feel it when you’re walking, it’s a bit of an issue, but you can walk. Maybe I can jog a little bit, but when it’s really bad, I do remember that even jogging, I could feel it. I can’t run.”
However, on the competition day itself, EJ shared that he had been in a relatively good spot physically.
“If I’m being honest, I don’t think it hindered me to perform,” he told the press. “At least on the day of the Paris Olympics, I don’t think it hindered me to perform…If I’m analyzing everything without any emotion and just pure reality of things, I think it did affect me but not on the competition day. It affected my preparations going in. It affected my consistency, it affected my overall program going into Paris.”
As he and his team revealed, EJ only had one workout session prior to the competition day.
With limited jump sessions, this put the Filipino at a disadvantage as he did not have the ideal timeframe to adjust to the poles he would be using in Paris, as well as the other variables of the competition.
Reflecting on the qualification round that saw him miss his first two attempts at 5.60 meters, he shared, “I didn’t realize I could get on big poles and it was a good thing, I would say. Poles were moving way too easy first few jumps and I didn’t expect that to happen.”
Though it was risky, his misses in his qualification helped him understand which poles to use and which heights to attack on a better level in preparation for the next round — even though his fourth-place finish did not turn out the way EJ had hoped.
“The goal was not to just jump 5.90m,” he expressed, looking back at the finals. “It’s the reason why if you see the years coming from Tokyo, I progressed and I wanted to jump 6.00 meters because I wanted to come closer and closer…Things happen.”
Despite the disappointment in his fourth-place result, EJ Obiena can still look back at the finals with some spirit of positivity. As he shared, “We’re dealt with what we have, and we maximize what we can produce out of it…It’s part of being a Filipino athlete.”
One day at a time
You could still see the disappointment in EJ Obiena’s face, still fresh after his fourth-place finish, and he admits, he is still processing the entire journey that has led up to this point. It has been long and riddled with challenges, from doping accusations to issues transporting his poles.
Because of this, the world no. 2 pole vaulter feels he can’t look too far into what the future of his career might hold just yet.
“I’m taking it one day at a time, seeing what exactly fuels my fire,” he says.
“I don’t wanna lie. I don’t wanna say, we’re gunning right away, this and that. If I don’t truly feel that, if I don’t truly comprehend the sacrifices I need to do, I don’t wanna be in [the 2028 LA Olympics] just to be in LA. If I’m gonna do that, I’m gonna go all out and freakin’ win the thing…Sorry for that language,” he says with a chuckle.
But his mood slowly shifts as he begins discussing what another Olympic journey would entail.
“If I were to do that, I need to be able to look my parents in the eye that I’m probably not going to see them again for the next four years at least. Maybe a month a year, at best. They need to understand it’s going to be another four painstaking years, and I need to focus everything and live this life” EJ says, the emotions beginning to form in tears.
“To be able to say that I know I can, what comes with that — that’s tough, it’s a long process, and if I’m willing to do all the sacrifices again, and be able to live with my life, that’s a long decision and long thinking I need to do…
“The competitive side of me [says] that if LA is tomorrow, I’d be there,” he says again with a playful laugh. “But, we’ll see. It’s not an easy decision to make, and I need that time to process it and hopefully fully be able to commit with all my gut and my being [to say] that I’m gonna be there, and represent the Philippines to the best of my ability.”
Banner images from EJ Obiena on Instagram and AFP.