Bilang isa sa mga mahuhusay na atleta sa larangan ng pole vaulting, ano nga ba ang naging inspirasyon ni EJ Obiena para tahakin ang sports na ito? Alamin sa video.
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00:00I'm wondering though, how did you get into pole vaulting?
00:03Because usually in the Philippines, that's not the first thing you think of.
00:07Yeah, exactly, basketball.
00:08And you're also a pretty tall guy, right?
00:11There's basketball, there's volleyball, lots of different sports.
00:14Although I know that your dad was an athlete, right?
00:17But you, in particular, how did you get into pole vaulting?
00:20I think I was introduced by my dad, you know.
00:23I can't deny that.
00:24My dad was the guy who put me in pole vaulting.
00:27He's the guy who I looked up to, you know, as a kid.
00:30You see your dad as your modern day superhero, you know.
00:34He does things that you can't, you know.
00:36He lifts you, he throws you in the air, you know.
00:38These are the things that my dad used to do.
00:40And anything that he does is amazing for me.
00:43And imagine seeing it from my eyes.
00:46Someone flinging themselves like 16 feet up in the air.
00:49So it's out of this world.
00:51And then, of course, you know, as a kid, you want this flight.
00:54You want to experience some free fall or some kind of sense of flight.
00:58Like what Superman and these superheroes that we watched when we were kids.
01:02And the easiest thing that I saw was pole vaulting.
01:04And the closest thing that my dad can give me was pole vaulting.
01:07And then I basically got into it.
01:09And then, you know, it slowly progressed into an opportunity to get scholarship.
01:15And an opportunity for me to be recruited by, you know, big universities in Manila.
01:21That's when it started to be more of a sport than just some pastime.
01:27Something that is fun for me.
01:28I kind of got into it and university got recruited.
01:31And that's where basically it started to be serious and represented Philippines and so on and so forth.
01:37Do you still remember the first time you tried pole vaulting?
01:41Like the first time you ran and jumped over the bar?
01:45I don't think I can remember it vividly.
01:47I just know that I was not trying to jump over the bar.
01:50I was trying to get over the mattress, the pit where we actually land.
01:55You know, being a small kid, you know.
01:57And then my dad is actually pulling the pole across.
02:01And I just basically hang.
02:03And then, you know, kind of goes over the, not even the bars, just a set of foam pits.
02:09So that's what was the earliest memory of pole vaulting for me.
02:13And then when did you realize that,
02:15Wait, I can do this as a career.
02:17Like I can really shift my entire focus to pole vaulting.
02:22Well, I never really saw it as a career.
02:24And I think I'm one of those athletes that I understand that this is not a career.
02:30This is my opportunity to make history.
02:32You know what I mean?
02:33As an athlete, I didn't see it first like, oh, I'm good at it.
02:37No, I was not good at it.
02:38You know, I was decent in Philippines.
02:40I was good maybe in university and the Philippines.
02:43But competitively, outside of the Philippines, I was terrible.
02:46I didn't make the world juniors, which, you know, a lot of the athletes at that time,
02:51at my age, were able to go to.
02:54So I think I wanted that Olympic dream.
02:57And I really felt that I was close enough to make it a reality.
03:01But then, you know, I got injured.
03:03And I think that kind of just put a bit more importance.
03:07You know, you know what they say when you lost something,
03:09and then you're given an opportunity to have it again.
03:12You know, you just want it a little bit more.
03:14You know, you understand the value of it.
03:16And when pole voting was took away from me back in 2017,
03:20I had, you know, basically two options in six months,
03:23like continue my studies in USD and, you know, live a normal life.
03:27I've done my part as an athlete or pursue my dream to be an Olympian
03:31and try to make Tokyo Olympics.
03:33It didn't make a lot of sense at that time.
03:35But I said to my parents, you know, I would regret it when come
03:39the time where I can't do this anymore.
03:41I would regret it not trying.
03:42I didn't see it as a career.
03:44You know, I just saw it that this is my opportunity.
03:47And it meant so much for me that I needed to try.
03:51It was a hard, you know, as Filipinos,
03:53it is a hard decision to tell my parents that I'm going to focus
03:56on pole voting for the next two years.
03:58I'm going to take a leave of absence from my university
04:02and study as minimal as I needed and pursue this dream.
04:11I'm going to take a leave of absence from my university
04:13and study as minimal as I needed and pursue this dream.