Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 19) — Filipino pole vault sensation EJ Obiena on Thursday maintained his innocence from doping accusation after taking lie detector tests.
Obiena’s camp said he passed both the polygraph exam and a new form of lie detection called EyeDetect.
The world’s no. 2 pole vaulter said the “baseless” claims affected him and his team.
“Because I’m not a [cheater], I didn’t do anything to enhance my performance illegally,” said Obiena in a virtual press conference.
“It’s all because of the hard work of my team,” he continued. “Therefore, I believe that statement really damaged the reputation that I’ve carefully built in the past few years.”
“I truly believe that doping should never have space in this sport,” he also said. “The definition of sport should not even entertain doping.”
Obiena, who won a gold medal in the recently concluded Asian Games in China, said that he remains focused in his upcoming tournaments en route to the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Anais Lavillenie, wife of former world record holder and French Olympic gold medalist Renaud Lavillenie, accused Obiena online of using performance enhancing drugs after Brazilian pole vaulter Thiago Braz was suspended for testing positive in July.
Both Obiena and Braz are trained by Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov.
However, Obiena’s longtime mentor James Lafferty said that Lavillenie’s accusation is “unfounded.”
“What many people fail to recognize is that Mr. Braz had stopped training with Mr. Obiena and Mr. Petrov in 2022,” Lafferty said in the same press conference. “So he had been out of the camp for a year and when he was failing this drug test. So there’s no linkage.”
Lafferty added that they remain in discussions with lawyers in France and the Philippines on whether they will be pursuing legal action.
Obiena’s camp also said that they are willing to shoulder the cost of the same lie detection tests on Lavillenie to disprove her allegations.
With reports from CNN Philippines correspondent Pauline Verzosa
