September 14, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Filipino ace EJ Obiena kissed his bid within the 2025 World Athletics Championships goodbye after fumbling within the males’s pole vault qualification spherical final night time in Tokyo.
World No. 7 Obiena vaulted solely 5.55 meters on opening night time at Japan’s Nationwide Stadium and missed the cutoff for the 12 slots to Monday’s finals.
Off to the medal rounds are the planet’s elite pole-vaulters led by two-time world and Olympic champion Armand Duplantis of Sweden.
Duplantis, the proprietor of the world file at 6.29m, did simply sufficient to advance with a 5.75m effort.
Eleven different bets, together with Paris Olympics bronze medalist and world No. 2 Emmanouil Karalis of Greece, 2024 Olympiad silver medalist and No. 3 Sam Kendricks of the US and 2023 World Championships third-placer Kurtis Marscall marched ahead with similar 5.75m marks.
It was a disappointing early exit for Obiena, the silver medalist behind Duplantis in 2023 and bronze medalist the 12 months earlier than, who wound up 18th total within the preliminaries.
Obiena cleared 5.55m on his first try however failed twice at 5.70m.