Bailey records indoor PR at US meet

NATIONAL champion Alain Bailey leaped a personal-best 7.99m Friday night to win the long jump invitational on the opening day of the two-day Tyson Invitational at the Randal Tyson Track Complex in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The 22-year-old Bailey, a senior at the University of Arkansas, automatically qualified for the March 12-13 NCAA Division One Indoor Championships by surpassing 7.85 metres.

A Kingston College past student, Bailey recorded the second-best jump for US collegians this season, after LSU's Zedric Thomas (8.00m).

Arkansas head coach Chris Bucknam expects Bailey to better his 14th-place finish at last year's NCAA Indoor Championships.

"Alain Bailey made a statement in the long jump and came out of his shell," he said.

Bailey bettered his previous indoor best of 7.88 set two years ago at the NCAA Indoor Championships and posted the sixth best jump in Arkansas history.

He eclipsed Jamaican arch-rival and junior at the University of Nebraska, Nicholas Gordon, a past student of Calabar, who also booked an automatic berth at the NCAA Indoors with 7.85m and will defend his title.

Gordon triumphed with a personal best 8.03m at last year's NCAA Indoors, with Wolmer's past student Julian Reid placing fourth and another KC past student, Tarik Batchelor, 10th.

Batchelor, meanwhile, also competing at the Tyson Invitational as a sophomore for Arkansas, placed fourth in Friday's event in a season-best 7.80m.

In the women's long jump invitational, Jamaicans Jovanee Jarrett and Deandra Doyley, an Immaculate past student, placed fourth and sixth, respectively.

Jarrett leaped 6.48m and Doyley of the University of Miami 6.30m. American Britney Reese won with 6.63 ahead of Oregon's Jamesha Youngblood, 6.56.

Meanwhile, Veronica Campbell Brown maintained her build-up to the World Indoor Championships by winning the consolation 60m in 7.15 seconds, just ahead of Kelli-Ann Baptiste, 7.16sec, Debbie-Ann Ferguson, 7.24sec, and compatriot Aleen Bailey, 7.30sec.

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