ERNEST John "EJ" Obiena seeks to retain his men's pole vault title and deliver the Philippines another gold medal in the 20th Asian Games in Japan on Tuesday.
Expected to rule the continental meet anew, Obiena competes against 11 other pole vaulters at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium at 5:20 p.m. in Manila.
This Asiad appears to be Obiena's last tournament for his season.
"One more for this season," Obiena wrote on his social media pages on Monday.
"Asian Games tomorrow at 18:20 local time," added the 6-foot-2 pole vaulter who owns the Asian record of 6.0-m clearance.
The challenge for Obiena is not only to defend his title but also to surpass the meet record of 5.90-m clearance he set at the 2023 edition in Hangzhou, China.
Obiena sports a season-best clearance of 5.91 m, set on Aug. 18 at the Golden Sand Meet in Poland, where he soared past 5.90 m for the first time since the Paris Olympics.
Seizing gold in the Polish meet, Obiena achieved another 5.90 m clearance in the Zurich Diamond League to place fifth and qualify for the World Championships next year.
Obiena last saw action at the Domspringen Wesel in Germany where aced 5.75 m for a silver medal.
World No. 20 Chinese Li Chenyang and No. 15 Qatari Seifeldin Abdelsalam shape up to be the best players challenging No. 11 Obiena — the highest-ranked pole vaulter in the competition.
Thai Patsapong Amsamarng, whom Obiena only defeated via countback (5.70 m) at the Southeast Asian Games last December, is out to challenge the Filipino anew.
Chinese Yao Jie, Indians Kuldeep Kumar and Dev Kumar Meena, Japanese Masaki Ejima and Tomoya Karasawa, Saudi Arabian Hussain Al Hizam, and Taiwanese Huang Yong-fu and Wu Yan-han complete the list of competitors.
