FORMER Western Champs gold medal-winning athletes Brithon Senior, Owayne Owens, Roschell Clayton and Lamara Distin have been moving up on their schools’ all-time top 10 rankings.

The US NCAA outdoor season got underway recently and after a fairly successful indoor season, the outdoor season is slowly getting into high gear after being cancelled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Most athletes are competing outdoors for the first time in two years. Senior, who attended Rusea’s High, Owens who is formerly of Cornwall College, Clayton who attended Montego Bay High and Mt Alvernia High schools and Distin who started at Rusea’s High, all achieved personal best performances in recent meets and have made an impression on their schools’ all time lists. Senior, who was competing outdoors for the first time for the University of South Dakota (USD), smashed the outdoor record in the 110m hurdles when he ran 13.54 seconds at the Texas Relays in Austin, Texas, on Saturday.

The former national junior representative, who also holds USD’s indoor record, erased the 13.59 seconds set in 2016 by his current coach, Tevaskie Lewin who is a former Herbert Morrison athlete.

Owens, who despite being at the University of Virginia (UVA) for three years is just starting his first outdoor season due to injury and the pandemic, jumped to third place on the triple jump charts after he won the event at the Raleigh Relays at North Carolina State with a mark of 16.29m.

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) indoor champion, who had a previous best mark of 14.80m from his abbreviated 2019 season, is also tied for first place for the indoor long jump and third for the indoor triple jump at UVA.

After sitting out last year, Distin cleared an outdoor college best 1.85m for third place at the Texas Relays and is tied for fourth best of all time at Texas A&M University.

Distin, who had also claimed a place on the Texas A&M indoor top 10 on her way to qualifying for the national championships, also competed in the outdoor triple jump for the first time in two years, placing seventh with a best mark of 13.04m.

Clayton, who held the Western Champs girls’ Class 1 high jump record, is only the third woman to clear 1.80m at Villanova University after she cleared a college best 1.80m at a meet earlier this month.

In just a few meets since she started attending Villanova University this school year Clayton has established herself as one of their top jumpers, clearing 1.72m at an indoor meet — good for a top five position on the school list.

Warren Barrett inched up on Liberty University men’s shot put rankings when he threw 18.45m at the Texas Relays, which took him to fourth place overall.

Meanwhile, former Cornwall College athletes were in good form on the weekend. Kobe Jordan Rhooms of Morgan State University won the long jump at Saturday’s Navy Invite with a season-best 7.04m (1.7m/s) and was tied for third in the high jump with 1.90m.

In his first college meet, Tarique Gooden clocked 50.95 seconds in the 400m and anchored the Morgan State 4x400m relay team to victory.

Brenton Shippy of South Carolina State, who is ranked number three in the Mid-Eastern Athletics Conference (MEAC) after his wind-aided 10.41 seconds (2.9m/s), ran 21.54 seconds in the 200m and was part of the 4x100m relay team that clocked 40.84 seconds.

Nathan Reid of the University of Wyoming was seventh in the discus throw after a decent 48.90m from just two legal throws and threw 13.20m in the shot put.