MANILA, Philippines — Filipino Olympic pole vaulter Ernerst John "EJ" Obiena made big changes as he tries to regain his old form, training under a new coach in Polish Marcin Szcepanski and moving his training base from Formia, Italy to Athens, Greece last month.
The move ended Obiena's 12-year partnership with Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov, who transformed a once lanky teenager from Tondo to a world-class pole vaulter.
The 30-year-old Obiena explained the rationale behind the change.
"It's really hard. That decision was not made just because. We still talk and I call Vitaly from time to time. I love the guy, I really do. He built me. He made my career. He has done so much for me and that it really is a difficult decision," said Obiena in the Power and Play program Saturday.
"Is it a mutual decision? I would say at the decision-making part, yes, but we both kind of realize that something needs to change in either how we train, how we do it, we've tried a lot of things to make this work."
Obiena made it clear that his relationship with the 88-year-old Petrov was perfect.
The only Asian to surpass the 6.0m height said that he just came to realize that he needs a change in environment, preferably one that will refuel his competitive side.
"To be honest, I have no complaints with Vitaly. It's really more of sometimes that you're so comfortable with the people you're around that you don't see the growth that you could achieve by putting yourself in a much tougher or even just a change, let's just put it that way," shared Obiena.
As he continued his conversation with Petrov, Obiena thought it would benefit him to train with his friend and world No. 2 Emmanouil Karalis, who trains under his father and main coach Charalampos.
Obiena's new coach Szcepanski, meanwhile, is Karalis' technical and speed coach.
"I thought it would be nice to train with my friend Emmanouil, we're pretty good friends. I think we could go and have this iron sharpens iron kind of thing, and he (Petrov) said it's a good idea, and that decision for me it came a little bit lighter because I made that decision not because of anything that Vitaly has done wrong or anything that's wrong within our relationship," shared Obiena.
"Our relationship was perfect, magnificent. Without a doubt, Vitaly was living for me, giving me everything that I need. Sometimes that is not the thing I need to grow, let's put it that way."
Obiena added that the 36-year-old Szcepanski's group of Polish pole vaulters combined with Karalis' fellow Greek athletes is exactly what he needs to bring out his competitive fire more.
"He (szcepanki) has a good group. My situation in Formia ended up becoming I trained a lot with my coach Vitaly. That's a very tough condition for an athlete to have. You're alone (no training partners) pushing yourself doing the training. It's good you could motivate yourself as much as you want," said Obiena.
"But having that competitive side of things, and I said I'm a very competitive person, having that day in and day out really helps. That's where Emmanouil, the Polish group, the Greek athletes, come in and that's one of the biggest factors for me to decide, okay, I wanna train with Marcin and his group."
Obiena's "slump" started at the Paris Olympics where he place fourth following a back injury which he said hampered his preparations for the 2024 meet.
The pride of the University of Santo Tomas has since struggled to regain his form that made him world No. 2, when he used to rule many competions or at least make the podium.
Obiena has been achieving good results lately, though, having won a gold medal at the Raiffeisen Austrian Open in Austria with a 5.75m clearance on the July 1, placing fourth in Fly Athens Street Pole Vault in Greece with 5.81m on July 5, ranking sixth in Gyulai Istvan Memorial in Hungary with 5.80m on July 14, and snaring a silver medal in Meeting Madrid in Spain with a season-best 5.85m clearance on July 16.
