BIG personal best performances from 800m runner Navasky Anderson of Mississippi State University and Demisha Roswell of Texas Tech University, at their respective outdoors track and field championships, highlighted outstanding performances by Jamaicans at last weekend’s Power Five championships in the USA.

Anderson, the former St Jago runner, won the South-East Conference (SEC) men’s 800m in 1:45.89 seconds in Oxford, Mississippi while Roswell, the former Vere Technical runner, won the 100m hurdles at the Big12 championships on her home track in Lubbock, Texas, in 12.44 seconds (1.5m/).

Both were big personal best performances and also saw them move way up in the Jamaican all-time rankings — fourth for Roswell and fifth for Anderson, as they were among nine Jamaican winners at a ‘Power Five’ championship last weekend.

Kemba Nelson of the University of Oregon won the women’s sprint double at the Pac 12 Championships while national record holder Lamara Distin of Texas A&M University, Wayne Pinnock of the University of Tennessee, Stacey-Ann Williams of the University of Texas, Trishauna Hemmings of Clemson University, Abigail Schaaffe of the University of Minnesota, and Safin Wills of Purdue were also winners.

Anderson, who also attended Essex County Community College, ran a well-judged race to win his first SEC title ,his time the fifth fastest ever by a Jamaican man and fastest ever since May 1996.

He was in third place until the final 80 metres when he ran past Texas A&M’s Sam Whitmarsh (1:46.09 seconds) and the University of Georgia’s Clayborn Pender (1:46.71), both also running lifetime bests.

Anderson lowered his time from the 1:46.51 seconds he registered in April to crack the Jamaican all-time top 10 then, and trails only national record holder Seymour Newman who set the standard 1:45.30 seconds 45 years ago in May 1977, Clive Terrelonge who ran 1:45.44 in Rome in 1995, while Mario Vernon-Watson and Alex Morgan tied with 1:45.58 at a meet in Fairfax, Virginia in May 1996.

Roswell of Texas Tech set a meet record in the 100m hurdles, beating the 12.63 set in 2006 by former University of Nebraska runner Precilla Lopes and compatriot World Under-20 champion Ackera Nugent of Baylor University.

Roswell, who also attended New Mexico Junior College before transferring to Texas Tech, became the fourth-fastest Jamaican ever and fastest so far this season.

Her 12.44 seconds trails only national record holder Danielle Williams’ 12.32 seconds and Janeek Brown and Britany Anderson who have both run 12.40 seconds.

Roswell, who had run a then personal-best 12.78 seconds in Saturday’s preliminaries, started the season with a best of 13.17 seconds.

Nugent’s 12.45 seconds beat the 12.74 seconds she ran Saturday and moved her from 15th to fifth overall on the Jamaican list.

Distin, who has been in cruise control all year, easily won the women’s high jump with 1.95m, beating South Carolina’s Rachel Glenn who had beaten her at the NCAA final last year.

Pinnock needed just one attempt to win the men’s long jump with 8.05m (0.3m/s), beating his teammate and defending champion Carey McLeod- 7.91m (0.4m/s).

Running on her home track at Hayward Field, Nelson ran a personal best 22.74 seconds (0.1m/s) to win the 200m after she was fourth last year, and moved one spot up to first place from last year in the 100m by running a season best 11.05 seconds (-0.1m/s).

The former Mt Alvernia High runner was also part of the University of Oregon’s 4x100m relay team that won with 42.91 seconds.

Texas’s Williams retained her Big 12 women’s 400m with a personal best 50.21 seconds, with Francis of Baylor fourth in 51.15 seconds.

Her teammate Kevona Davis picked up two second -lace finishes in the women’s 100m/200m, setting new personal bests in the process.

She ran a wind-aided 10.83 seconds (2.4m/s) in the 100m finals, after running 10.95 seconds in the semis, and then ran 22.26 seconds (2.0m/s) in the 200m final, lowering the 22.49 she set in the preliminaries on Saturday.

Kavia Francis of Baylor was seventh in 22.91 seconds and was also part of the winning 4x400m team.

Also in the SEC, world and NCAA leader Cherokee Young of Texas A&M was second in the women’s 400m with 50.45 seconds while Apalos Edwards of Louisiana State was also second in the men’s triple jump with a personal best 16.24m (0.6m/s). Ryan Brown of the University of Arkansas was fifth with 15.85 (0.3m/s).