Clive Pullen’s personal best 16.90m (1.9m/s) effort to win the men’s triple jump, the highlight of Thursday’s opening day of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association’s (JAAA) National Senior Championships at the National Stadium, was a big relief but not a surprise.

Pullen, the former Kingston College student who just finished his NCAA career on a high with three of four titles, got the Olympic qualifying distance of 16.85m with only his second legal jump on Thursday and will be the first man to represent Jamaica in the ‘hop, step, and jump’ at the Olympics since Henry Jackson in 1972.

The outgoing and demonstrative Pullen, who has jumped 16.64m indoors, told the Jamaica Observer on Thursday he was expecting to jump far this weekend.

“No, I am not surprised,” he said when asked if he expected to jump this far. “I am not surprised, it was just about getting it legally and it’s a big relief.”

He described the 2016 season as “a breakout season. Every meet I go to I have been improving every step of the way. I ended up getting three of four collegiate titles; a lot of athletes go through their collegiate career and don’t win a single title, and I ended up with three of four in one season, so I am grateful.”

On Thursday, Pullen, who won both long and triple jumps at the Penn Relays in back-to-back seasons, sandwiched 16.63m between two fouls in the first round before ripping off the jump of his life in the fourth round then sat out the rest of the competition.

Asked where the big jump came from, his simple response was: “From God, it’s all God. I have been practising all season for this. From my freshman year I had (the Rio Olympics) on my mind and it was all about focusing on the process, not so much the results.”

From “fouling out in a national meet to winning three of four NCAA titles, and I guess it was God saying execute it on home soil, and I came today and executed and got it and I am grateful,” Pullen reiterated.

With the first phase, qualifying for the Olympics out of the way, Pullen knows the work is far from over and a lot of heavy lifting is left to come.

How do you prepare for Rio? “The coaches have films and it’s all about going back to the drawing board, studying films, and fine-tuning to go to Rio and represent my country well,” he said.

Making the team is one thing, he reasoned. “I am on the plane, but it is no boy league no more, it’s the big men league now, and I have to represent myself…I have to go there and rub shoulders with the greats and I want to be part of that legacy.”