Lamara Distin is the new undisputed queen of Jamaican women’s high jump after she broke the National outdoor record with a 1.96m clearance to win the event on Saturday’s final day of the 94th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Austin, Texas.

The Texas A&M junior, who broke the indoor record about six weeks ago, passed the 1.93m Jamaican outdoor record set in May 2010 by Sheree Francis-Ruff.

Distin, the World Championships World Under-20 finalist in 2018 in Tampere, Finland, told the Jamaica Observer she was very happy with her performance.

“I’m ecstatic right now, and I’m expecting to keep improving as my outdoor season progresses,” she said.

Distin said while she knew she would do well in the outdoors after her excellent indoor season, she did not expect to be jumping so high so soon.

“Going into the competition, I was really confident. Knowing how my indoor season went gives me a lot of confidence heading into the competition,” she noted.

“I knew if everything goes well, I’ll be able to jump high bars, but I had no idea it would be my first outdoor meet. I mean, you have to be prepared for the unexpected sometimes.”

Her mark is also the new Texas A&M school record, breaking the 1.95m set last year by Tyra Gittens, is the fifth best collegian all-time. It’s also a World and NCAA leading mark and is a World Athletics World Championships qualifying mark.

The mark beat her previous best of 1.90m set last year while placing second at the NCAA Division One championships at Hayward Field and equalled competing at national trials last year’s and was also the best performance in the event ever at the Mike Myers Field.

The ISSA/GraceKennedy Girls’ Champs Class One winner now holds both the outdoor and indoor records after she cleared 1.92m to win the event at the Don Kirby Elite Indoor meet at the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in February and which she equalled while winning the NCAA Indoor title earlier this month.

Distin had broken the previous National indoor record of 1.90m set in March 2002 at a meet in Boston, USA, by Maresa Cadienhead and beat her previous best 1.88m which had seen her tied with two other jumpers for second place.

Also at the Texas Relays, Jamaica’s Asani Hylton set a new personal record 7,671 points in the decathlon which ended on Thursday, as he placed fourth overall.

The Stephen F Austin student-athlete, who won the event last year, beat his previous best of 7,536 points by 135 points after he was on 4,046 points at the halfway mark on Wednesday.

Leo Neugebauer of the University of Texas won the event with a world-leading and personal best 8,131 points surpassing his previous best of 7,793 points; Alex Spyridonidis of the University of Auburn, who was third overnight, finished second with 7,917 points and Trpimir Siroki of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi was third with 7,838 points, both also lifetime best marks.

Hylton had a strong second day with three personal best marks in the five disciplines, starting with a best of 14.50 seconds in the 110m hurdles, better than his previous best of 14.53 seconds for 911 points.

— Paul Reid