NATIONAL coach Emerson Obiena and his son, pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena, literally kept each other at arm’s length during their short time together in the last Tokyo Olympic Games.
“We didn’t have any physical contact while we were in Tokyo. I was afraid that I might infect him,” Obiena the father said of the so-near-yet-so-far experience with his son whom he had not seen for over a year. “Although I was fully vaccinated against COVID-19, I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t a carrier of the virus.”
Fearing that it might his hamper his performance, Obeina the pole vaulter decided not to be vaccinated in his Olympic build-up, maintaining that status until he touched down in the Japanese capital, but has now taken his first dose after returning to his training camp in Formia, Italy.
The elder Obiena, who checked out of quarantine last Aug. 15, was in the Japanese capital during the Tokyo Olympics as the deputy of Serbian mentor Vitaly Petrov, who had been the athlete’s coach at the World Athletics elite training camp in in the Italian seaport city.
Petrovalso handled Brazilian Rio Olympic men’s pole vaulter Thiago Braz, Obiena’s training partner in Italy, so had to delegate some of his responsibilities to the athlete’s father-coach.
The elder Obiena revealed that he had limited interaction with his son, who had requested for a room to himself during his Tokyo stint and did not see much of his father except during actual training.
“Malaki talaga ang hirap. Venue to hotel and back lang. Hindi makalabas,” the elder Obiena recalled of their daily routine that included daily tests for the virus.
Their anxiety increased when American two-time world champion Sam Kendricks, who was living at the Athletes Village, had to be quarantined and sent home just days before the event for testing positive COVID-19.
“Malaki talaga ang takot ni EJ at ako dahil nakasabay namin si Sam sa practice. The pole vaulters were all using the same landing mat,” the elder Obiena said.
Less than a month later, Father and son have not yet thoroughly talked about the athlete’s slump at the Tokyo Games.
Obiena wound up 11th in the men’s pole vault finals last Aug. 3, clearing just 5.70 meters, 17 centimeters short of his former national record of 5.87 meters.
Upset by his mediocre outing, the lean and lanky athlete, who had been in Europe since winning a gold medal in the 30th Southeast Asian Games in December 2019, was initially unsure of what to do next, seemingly lukewarm to undergoing another grueling grind just to qualifyfor the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“While we did not talk about it, I knew that he felt devastated after that performance,” the elder Obiena recalled. “But we allowed to process it by himself since he is mature enough.”
The pole vaulter’s doubts were laid to rest over the weekend when he displayed sharp form in setting a new national record of 5.91 meters to bag a silver medal in the 11th stop of the prestigious 2021 Diamond League athletic series at the Charlety Stadium in Paris, France.
He finished a strong runner-up to Swede Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Armand Duplantis, who ruled the event with a meet-record jump of 6.01 meters.
Obiena defeated five Olympic rivals — Americans Chris Nilsen, the bronze medalist in the Paris leg, and KC Lightfoot, Poland’s Piotr Lisek, Briton Harry Coppell and 2012 London Olympiad champion Renauld Lavillenie of France — who all finished ahead of him in the Japanese capital.
