TWO-TIME Olympic pole vaulter EJ Obiena will miss the 2025 World Indoor Championships after falling short of the required clearance before the qualifying period ended, he announced on Tuesday night.
To secure a spot in the World Indoor Championships, Obiena needed to clear at least 5.85 meters within the qualifying period, which was set to run until March 9.
However, Obiena’s highest recent clearance was only 5.80 meters, which he achieved at the ORLEN Copernicus Cup in Torun, Poland, on Feb. 16 — a performance that still secured him a gold medal in the event.
In a social media post, Obiena said “there are no more competitions left” for him to participate in before the deadline.
“Even though there is still time to qualify for the World Indoor Championships, there are no more competitions left for me to participate,” the 29-year-old pole vault star wrote. “The next one that I got is Mondo Classic on the 13th of March, which is already outside the qualification period.”
“I can promise you all that my team and I have scoured the calendar for possible competitions but NO LUCK. With this, I would inevitably miss the championships.”
With the World Indoors out of reach, Obiena will now shift his focus to the World Athletics Championships in September in Tokyo, the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in December in Thailand, and the Asian Games in February 2026 in Nagoya.
“The indoor season is always a backseat to the outdoor season. I will hence prioritize and prepare for the upcoming outdoor competition. This is when I would represent the country in the World Championships, Asian Championships and SEA Games,” he said.
Recently, Obiena finished seventh in the ISTAF Indoor Düsseldorf in Germany and placed ninth in the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais Tropee in France.
For now, Obiena is prioritizing rest as he continues to recover from a vertebral fracture, an injury that has bugged him since the lead-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“The key is to go into the outdoor season healthy and ready to compete at the highest level. It is also important to defend what I have already achieved in the (World Championships, Asian Championships and SEA Games),” he said.
Obiena will return to action at the Mondo Classic on March 13 in Sweden, where he is set to compete against Olympic gold medalist Mondo Duplantis, who recently broke his own pole vault world record for the 11th time.
