Filipino pole vaulter EJ Obiena fell short of shattering three records as he placed fourth in the Diamond League final in Zurich, Switzerland, on Thursday, September 9 (Friday, September 10, Manila time).

Obiena cleared 5.83m along with the other five pole vaulters who qualified for the final but failed to surpass 5.93m after three attempts and crashed out of medal contention.

Hurdling 5.93m would have meant Obiena resetting his personal best and the national record of 5.91m he set in Paris in August, and breaking the Asian mark of 5.92m held by Kazakhstan’s Igor Potapovich since 1998.

With no surprise, Sweden’s Armand Duplantis added another gold medal to his rapidly growing collection with a new meet record of 6.06m.

Duplantis, the Tokyo Olympics champion, tried to eclipse his world record of 6.18m with the mammoth crowd at the Blankers-Koen Stadium rooting for him, but tallied three fouls at 6.19m.

USA’s Sam Kendricks settled for silver, edging Authorized Neutral Athletes’ Timur Morgunov for second place via the count back rule as they both cleared 5.93m.

Coming off a disappointing 11th-place showing in the Tokyo Olympics, Obiena made huge strides in the past couple of weeks.

Obiena smashed the national record to clinch silver in the Paris Diamond League and cracked the top five in the world rankings.

He then became the first Filipino to reach the Diamond League final, where he finished higher than the USA’s Christopher Nilsen, the current Olympic silver medalist, and KC Lightfoot, the fourth-placer in Tokyo.

Nilsen and Lightfoot wound up at fifth and sixth places, respectively, after both needing three attempts to successfully leap 5.83m, while Obiena took just two tries to clear the height. – Rappler.com