Calvert, Forbes hit peak form ahead of National Trials
Sprinter Schillonie Calvert-Powell and long jumper Damar Forbes are peaking at the right time for the JAAA National Senior Championships next weekend, after recording new lifetime- best performances over the weekend.
Both improved on their best-ever performances to catapult into the top four in the world at the time, Calvert-Powell taking over third place in the Women’s 100m with 10.94 seconds (-0.1 m/s), while Forbes is ranked number four in the long jump after jumping 8.29m.
Calvert-Powell lowered her time in the 100m while competing in the preliminaries of the Women’s 100m at the ALTIS Summer Series in Arizona on Saturday, the third-fastest in the world so far this year and second-fastest Jamaican behind world leader Elaine Thompson’s 10.78 seconds, American Aleia Hobbs’ 10.85 seconds, and just ahead of Defne Schippers’ 10.94 seconds.
Calvert-Powell, who won the final in 11.10 seconds (+0.2m/s) broke her previous best of 11.05 seconds which she ran three times — twice in 2012 and once in 2011.
The 2013 World Championships representative and World Youth Championships bronze medallist in 2005, had run a season’s best 11.15 seconds at the Jamaica International Invitational in May, and this time sets her up nicely for the JAAA National Senior Trials set for the National Stadium next weekend.
Forbes, a finalist at the World Championships in Moscow in 2013, recorded a personal best 8.29m (0.7m/s) for third place in the long jump at the Fannie Blankers-Koen meet in Hengelo, Holland, yesterday, finishing behind two South Africans in world leader Luvo Manyonga with 8.62m (0.8m/s), and Rushwal Samaai with 8.34m (1.0m/s).
His mark equals the Czech Republic’s Radek Juska on the IAAF performance list.
Meanwhile, discus national record holder and world leader Fedrick Dacres was second in the discus throw at the Hengelo meet, with a best mark of 65.71m behind Lithuania’s Andrius Gudzius with 66.45m and Sweden’s Daniel Stahl third with 64.44m.
Dacres has three of the top 10 marks in the world with 68.88m and 68.67m, both set earlier this year in Kingston, being the top two.
