May 20, 2014
Tuesday,
7:30 p.m.,
Northern end of Philsports track oval,
Philsports Complex,
Pasig City
It’s Day 5 of the Philippine National Games.
The blistering heat of summer 2014 has kept me indoors most of the time, and with temperatures rising up to 35 degrees centigrade and more in the afternoon.
I go the athletics meets at the Philsports Complex oval at the around 5 p.m.
At that time, the 800-meter run finals are finished, and I have finished taking photos of the men’s, women’s , boys and girls events for my hobby.
For an hour, I move around and do interviews.
I have just packed my camera in my bag, and wanted to just take a peek at the junior girls pole vault, and find out why there are a lot of girls screaming and jumping and shrieking.
“Hey, she just broke a record,” Jeannette Obiena, the mother, hollers to me as I was casually walking across the field.
Another familiar person calls me. It’s Romy Sotto. He offers me a seat next to him on a monobloc chair.
Unable, and fighting the urge to get my camera, I sat glued in the chair next to Mr. Sotto, and together we watch this tall young try her best to clear 3.25 meters with no success.
When it was all over, Emily Jean Obiena, who belongs to a family of record-breakers, broke the Philippine junior women’s record in pole vault twice on Tuesday evening.
And it will be remembered as one of the few national records which fell in the short, hot summer days of the 2014 Philippine National Games athletics meet at the Philsports track stadium in Pasig City.
A strong early evening wind has just settled down when the five-foot-six Emily cleared 3.2 meters on her first attempt, and she did it with only her mother Jeannette watching from afar.
The young Obiena, a third year high school student at Chiang Kai Shek School, broke past the 3.10 meter mark twice that evening, first after she passed the bar at 3.15 meters.
(Emily Jean Obiena poses next to her pole, and the marker which reads 3.20 meter after she clears it in the junior girls pole vault.)
“Malakas po ang hangin. Pero nung nasa higher heights na ako, umayos na siya,” said Obiena when I finally brought out my digital voice recorder.
Emily made her feat in the absence of her father Emerson and brother Ernest “EJ,” who are both record-breakers in pole vault themselves.
Last year, Emily cleared 3.10 meters in the 2013 Asian Youth Games in Nanjing, and equaled the national mark which University of the Philippines bet Natasha Nalus in the UAAP three years ago.
She has an unrecognized attempt of 3.14 which Obiena cleared early this year in a Fil-Chinese meet.
On the other hand, Cebu City’s Kirstie Kay Vinco and University of Santo Tomas’ Rechelle Abotalmo took the silver and bronze with identical 2.4 meter performances.
Obiena, who earned a slot to the Asian junior meet in Taiwan next month, made an attempt at 3.2 meters, but her back hit the bar thrice.
Her brother EJ holds the national junior boys record at 4.91 meter since last year.
Too bad, EJ was not around, as he is currently in Formia, Italy for a 90-day training stint with their father Emerson, who used to hold the Philippine men’s record at 4.93 meters.
He recently cleared the 5.0-meter requirement set by former world record holder Sergei Bubka, vice president of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
Bubka is spearheading the training camp.
So, unable to take photos, I let her mom take all the selifies she can on Emily Jean and her friends, and as they celebrate the latest record broken by their family.
The evening is wearing on, and so I head for home.
Pektus Corner 