TWENTY-YEAR-OLD Tarik Batchelor, a Kingston College past student, was one of several Jamaicans who shone at collegiate meets in the United States last weekend.

A junior at the University of Arkansas, Batchelor leapt 7.98 metres to win the long jump at the Arkansas vs Texas Dual meet and automatically book his place for the March 11-12 NCAA Division One Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas.

He also won the triple jump with a mark of 15.70 metres, but had already qualified for the indoor championships in this event last week when he registered a personal best 16.52 metres at the Arkansas Invitational.

However, Batchelor will have to contend with another Jamaican, 20-year-old, six-foot, one-inch, Damar Forbes, who migrated to the United States at age seven.

Born in St Ann to Joan and Hopeton Forbes, Damar of Louisiana State University (LSU) posted a personal best 8.00 metres to finish second in the long jump at LSU Purple Tiger Invitational in Baton Rouge. His LSU Fighting Tigers teammate Zedric Thomas won the event in a personal best 8.01 metres.

Meanwhile, Andrew Riley of the University of Illinois won the 60m hurdles, timing 7.95 seconds, and finished second in the 60 metres in 6.80 seconds at the Illini Open in Champaign.

Riley, a past student of Calabar and a finance major, is the reigning NCAA Outdoor 100m hurdles champion after finishing fifth in the indoor championships last year.

Sheldon Wilkinson also won the 60m hurdles at the Texas A & M Conference Challenge in College Station when he recorded a personal best 7.91 seconds.

At the Kansas v Missouri Dual meet in Lawrence, 21-year-old sophomore Francine Simpson of the University of Kansas clinched the long jump with a mark of 6.04 metres and placed second in the 60 metres, clocking 7.60 seconds.

Simpson, the 2007 national junior long jump champion and an Edwin Allen High past student, said on the Jayhawks website: “I think I did pretty well… At the last meet I jumped 6.03 metres and this meet I jumped 6.04 metres, so it always nice to improve on your marks.”

Freshman at the University of Alabama, 18-year-old Jonathan Reid, a Kingston College standout, placed second in the high jump at the Kentucky Track & Field Invitational in Lexington. Reid cleared a personal best 2.14 metres, the same mark as his Crimson Tide teammate Tyler Campbell.

Reid, who won the event at Champs and the Carifta Games last year, will need to clear 2.24 metres, however, to secure his berth at the indoor championships in March.

Jamaica’s record-breaking junior thrower Chad Wright, now a freshman at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, placed third in the shot put in a personal best 16.78 metres at the Holiday Inn Invitational. The former Calabar star finished behind his Huskers teammate Luke Pinkelman, who threw a personal best 19.36 metres, and Tyler Hitchler, 16.86.