Three quarters through a wildly successful season where he has swept everything in his path, Kingston College’s Wayne Pinnock has a couple of decisions to make.

The first one is easy. His days as a hurdler are behind him and next season he will seriously train for the triple jump.

That could be bad news for other Class One horizontal jumpers as if he takes to the hop, step and jump as he did the long jump, the other athletes will find themselves fighting for the minor medals.

This year Pinnock, who has three marks in the top 10 on the IAAF Under-20 long jump rankings, has dominated all he has faced. All in dramatic fashion.

He set tongues wagging with his mouth-watering 7.99m at the Digicel Grand Prix finals, won at Boys’ Champs with 7.77m, and then broke the 24-year-old Penn Relays record with 7.88m a week ago.

“It has been a great season,” Pinnock told the Jamaica Observer after he was named the Penn Relays high school field events athlete of the meet, as well as copping the outstanding Jamaican high school athlete accolade by Team Jamaica Bickle.

“I had some downfalls last year (when) I tore my IT band iliotibial band — a tendon in he knee), but came back, put in the work, followed my coaches’ instructions and came out and executed,” Pinnock noted.

With his success in the jumps and lack of success in the hurdles, the switch was a no-brainer for Pinnock.

“I am going to try the triple jump next year. The hurdle not going well for me right now, so I might as well stick to the jumps,” he said.

A lot has changed since last season for the first-year Class One athlete, as he said dedication to training has been the major difference.

“I am training consistently and training hard, so that is paying off.”

After just coming within a hair’s breadth of the 8.00m mark, Pinnock says he hopes he will get over the mark at the IAAF World Under-20 Championships in Finland in July.”

— Paul Reid