JUST A WARM-UP

Ernest John Obiena failed to land on the podium of the Diamond League, one of his final stints before seeing action in the men’s pole vault event of the Paris Olympics.

But the 26-year-old superstar is hardly bothered.

Obiena said his fourth-place finish in the Paris leg of the Diamond League was just a warm-up as he gears up for his second appearance in the Summer Games that start on 26 July.

The Filipino sensation finished the 13-man tourney tied with Emmanouil Karalis of Greece with 5.75 meters behind Swedish powerhouse Armand Duplantis, American Sam Kendricks and Frenchman Thibaut Collet.

Duplantis, who is favored to rule the Summer Games in a record-breaking fashion, posted 6.0 meters while Kendricks and Collet registered 5.95 meters and 5.85 meters to settle for the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

“I felt really good, managed some really good jumps,” said Duplantis, who displayed his readiness to capture his second Olympic gold medal.

“There was a lot of height out there and that gives me a lot of confidence. I look forward to the next one.”

He added that he is pumped up and ready to perform against the world’s best vaulters in the Summer Games that will come off the wraps at the Stade de France on 3 August.

“I think the Olympics is going to be amazing because the energy has already been amazing in the runup to the Games,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, Obiena seemed satisfied with his performance at the Meeting de Paris.

“Merci Paris. 5.75m here in Meeting de Paris. Another joint finish with Manolo (Karalis),” Obiena said in a social media post.

So far, Obiena won three gold medals in the buildup for the Paris Games.

The first was at the LA Grand Prix in the United States last 18 May, where he went over 5.80 meters followed by a forgettable seventh-place finish in the Ostrava Golden Spike last 29 May where he only registered only 5.52 meters due to broken poles.

Despite breaking one of his poles again at the Oslo Bislett Games in Norway last 31 May, Obiena shared a silver medal with Karalis after tallying 5.72 meters using borrowed poles.

He finished seventh in the BAHAUS-GALAN tournament in Sweden last 3 June after going over 5.70 meters.

But after getting a new set of poles from the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association, Obiena got back on track and clinched a pair of gold medals in his next competitions: Irena Szewinska Memorial in Bydgoszcz last 21 June, where he posted his season-best of 5.97 meters, and the Memorial Czeslawa Cybulskiego in Poznan, where he registered 5.87 meters, three days later.