Obiena, Yulo poised to become first Filipino athletes to qualify for 2024 Olympics

Pole vaulter EJ Obiena and gymnast Carlos Yulo are poised to become the first Filipino athletes to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Thanks to specified tournaments that could key their outright Olympic qualification, Obiena and Yulo, who both competed in the 2021 Tokyo Games, don’t have to accumulate points through a series of qualifiers.

As long as they ace the necessary finish, the two athletes who hail from Manila can seal their Olympic spots and just opt to use the months leading up to the Paris Games to solely improve, unbothered as to whether or not they can make the Olympics.

Pole vaulter EJ Obiena (left) and gymnast Carlos Yulo PHOTOS BY RIO DELUVIO 

Of the two athletes, Obiena has the earliest chance of making it to Paris with the Olympic qualification for men’s pole vault set to start on July 1.

World Athletics-sanctioned tournaments starting on the said date will vault Obiena to the Games as long as he clears the 5.82m Olympic entry standard, a very doable feat for someone who already breached the said height before and surpass the 6.0 meter bar, an Asian Games record he posted in his conquest of the Bergen Jump Challenge in Norway last June 10.

The 27-year-old Obiena’s first chance to make the 2024 Games is in the Bauhaus-Galan in Sweden on July 2. Should he fail to clear 5.82 in that tourney, Obiena can do it in the Meeting International de Sotteville in France on July 7.

Prior to the two aforementioned competitions, Obiena will also compete in Ostrava Golden Spike in Czech Republic. Obiena last competed in the Oslo Diamond League – Bislett Games in Norway where he cleared 5.81 for the bronze.

On the other hand, Yulo needs to make the top eight in the individual all-around or at least win a gold medal in one apparatus in the World Artistics Championships Gymnastics to make his second Olympic stint.

The event is set from September 30 to October 8 in Antwerp, Belgium.

Judging from his performance in the recently-concluded Asian Championships in Singapore, Yulo, a two-time world champion, appeared to be on his way to another Olympic appearance through this World Championships.

In the Asian Championships, Yulo captured a gold medal each in the vault, floor exercise, and parallel bars as well as a bronze in horizontal bars. The 23-year-old also plucked a silver medal in the individual all-around which keyed his World Championships qualification.