The stage could be set for Shanieka Thomas-Ricketts to make her mark on the women’s triple jump and achieve one of the targets she has set for herself this season — a 15.00m leap.

The atmosphere at the second JN/Racers Grand Prix meet next Saturday is expected to be charged with triple World Record holder Usain Bolt competing on Jamaican soil for the final time, and the expected 30,000-plus turnout could set the stage for the jumper, as she hopes to be only the second Jamaican to get over the mark.Trecia Smith, a former World Championships gold medallist, holds the national record 15.16m set 2004 in Austria and has gone over the 15.00m mark four times, while IAAF World Indoors bronze medallist Kimberley Williams’ 14.62m in Moscow 2013 makes her the next best Jamaican on the IAAF performance list.“My goal for this year is to jump 15.00m,” Thomas-Ricketts told the

Jamaica Observer after she placed second at the recent Jamaica International Invitational at the National Stadium.“I am not close to it yet, but that is the goal,” she conceded.Thomas-Ricketts is aware that there are things she needs to improve on in training before she can get close to the mark that only 24 women in history has ever achieved.“To get to 15.00m, I have to tighten up on some technical aspects. I have to be running faster to the board and holding the phases, especially the last phase because that’s been a problem area for me the last two years, just making sure that I am technically ready to jump 15.00m,” she said.Thomas-Ricketts has competed at every major championship for Jamaica in the last three years including the Pan-American Games in Toronto, Canada; the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland in 2014; the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China in 2015; the IAAF World Indoors, and Rio Olympic Games last year.According to her, the season has been going well.“The season has been going good; I can’t complain (as) I jumped 13.69m (at JII), it’s far from what I have been jumping all season, but on the night there were a lot of factors that contributed to this. So I have to be pleased and I have to work harder to improve my marks,” the tall jumper explained.Thomas-Ricketts currently has a season’s best 14.20m, which she says is good for her, but there is still a lot of “fixing” left to do before she makes a bid to get into the top eight in London at the World Championships later this year.“I am still in the fixing phase, so I am just making sure I get stuff technically right in training so I can improve my jumps and come World Championships, I can do better than I did at the Olympics,” she noted.Thomas-Ricketts, who has a personal best 14.57m set last April in Kingston, was 11th in Beijing two years ago with a best 14.08m and finished 14th in qualifying in Rio with 14.02m last year.