EJ Obiena sent a message heard across the region: He is still the King of Asian pole vault.
Obiena set a new Asian Games record of 5.91m, reasserting his dominance over the field to clinch the gold medal in the men’s pole vault on Tuesday evening at the 20th Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026 at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium.
The 30-year-old Obiena also won gold in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, clearing 5.90m — 0.25m higher than the silver medalist.
This time, however, the world No. 11 found himself pushed by China’s world No. 20 Li Chenyang.
Li passed on 5.75m before making an attempt at 5.80m to challenge Obiena. After failing twice at that height, Li exhausted his remaining attempts, handing Obiena the gold.
Now training in Athens, Greece, under Polish coach Marcin Szczepanski, Obiena saved his best for last, using his final attempt to clear 5.91m and reset the Asian Games record of 5.90m that he himself established in Hangzhou.
(C) POC Media
The rain and cold made conditions far from ideal, but Obiena refused to make too much of the weather, recalling that he had competed in even worse conditions in Cambodia.
“Yeah, I’ve competed in Cambodia. Worse, worse,” Obiena recalled about the 2023 Southeast Asian Games. “It’s wet. It’s not nice. It’s not the best conditions for us, but I wouldn’t say that this is terrible.”
The conditions, he added, were still manageable enough for the field to produce solid jumps.
“It’s still good. Obviously, you see the jumps. Everybody pretty much jumped good — decent, at the very least,” he said. “So, it’s not terrible. It’s not something I, you know, I want to see when I compete.”
The victory also carried a different feeling for Obiena compared to his first Asian Games gold in Hangzhou.
While he described his first title as more special because of the emotional high that came with achieving it for the first time, Obiena viewed his latest triumph as a sign of a different version of himself.
“The first one is definitely special. More special than this. The emotional high of a first is definitely something,” he said.
“But this one is, I feel like it’s a bit of a rebirth, a little bit of a different me. And with that, I’m satisfied.”
Obiena was still ecstatic after producing the record-breaking clearance, but admitted that the emotions surrounding the victory felt different from those he experienced four years ago.
“It doesn’t mean that I’m not happy. Just that, you know, first emotional is different. It’s different,” he said. “This one is, I’m happy, I’m ecstatic, as you can see.
“But, yeah, it’s not, it doesn’t linger as long as it used to be.”
