Currently SEA Games pole vault champion and number three in the world, 26-year-old EJ Obiena is training to be a gold medalist at the next Olympics, despite paltry government support and a sports bureaucracy that mired him in a dispute at the peak of his career. But despite opportunities to change nationalities and compete for another country, Obiena told Howie Severino that he will always be a Filipino seeking to inspire younger athletes.Obiena revealed that hours before his flight to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics, he still didn't know if he would have poles to compete in his event. Sports politics and a major injury threatened to derail his career, but he persevered until he became number 3 in the world in 2022, with two years to prepare for the next Olympics in Paris. He has even beaten world record holder Armand Duplantis of Sweden at a meet this year.Howie spoke to EJ during his first visit home to the Philippines in three years, accompanied now by his girlfriend, the German triple jumper Caroline Joyeux, who was visiting the country for the first time.

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