CEBU, Philippines — While the entire country coached the coach and mourned the loss of, or the lost Gilas Pilipinas, EJ Obiena rewrote history in the world athletics championships. Last year he touched down to bronze that glittered more than gold. He was the first Filipino, man or woman, to ever medal in the worlds. Not even the great Lydia de Vega came close.
Even if the pride of Tondo, Manila is not a product of hard work of the articulate beauty queen, this year he lifted the country so high to enable its basketball blinded, er, minded countrymen in record attendance to see light amid the darkness of a sting, er, string, of so near yet so far bid at the FIBA World Cup.
Not only did the equally articulate jumper gave his country a silver, he reminded his short countrymen that basketball is not their way to world excellence in sports. Pole vault is. Boxing of course. Or gymnastics where height is not might. Look at the diminutive Carlos Yulo with gigantic feat.
Ironically, the 6’2” Obiena is probably tall enough to play in the country’s premiere basketball league, but definitely too short to matter in the company of world stilts and giants. Don’t expect any, er, many more of Kai Sotto and June Mar Fajardo, they are exceptional exceptions to the reality that the Filipino race is short. Not a self-inflicted racial slur, but a national roar nobody heard at all.
Ernest John is more earnest to embrace and train in a track and field discipline where the most disciplined has better chances at winning. He knows where his body and height have the potential to excel, trained hard and delivered what basketball could not, er, does not.
For while the Filipinos are basketball kings in Southeast Asia, the royal memory no longer remembers the last time we beat powerhouse China, or Korea, or Japan. Whereas in the final medal tally in this year’s worlds, Obiena placed the Philippines 27th among more than 200 participating countries, higher than China and its regional track and field rivals Thailand and Vietnam that did not medal. By his lonesome. For while we sent multiple entries for the first time, only the pole vault phenom jumped and landed on the podium. 400m hurdlers Eric Cray and Robyn Brown failed to hurdle world speed.
Now Obiena likens his life to a rose that rises and blooms above the thorns, one of which is the crowned virus that downed him two weeks before he finished runner-up in the worlds. He no longer mentioned his thorniest journey before, when he was almost liquidated from the national pool over liquidation issues. EJ cleared the bar of audit and the 6-meter barrier that he reprised to place behind the untouchable record holder. Before Paris, the Asiad is next where he cannot afford to loosen his grip. A Chinese jumper qualified for the world final now lurks and might soon invade his national, er, exclusive territory. Of continental supremacy.