Distin completes outdoor double with high jump effort
Jamaican national record holder Lamara Distin of Texas A&M University (TAMU) completed the NCAA double after she won the women’s high jump on Saturday’s fourth and final day of the NCAA Division 1 outdoor championships, held at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Distin, who had taken the Indoor Championships title in March, cleared 1.95m to win the outdoors, stepping up from her second place last year. However, she failed to equal the college record 2.00m, knocking down the bar all three times.
She joined long jumper Wayne Pinnock of the University of Tennessee as the only Jamaican winners at the championships as Kemba Nelson of the University of Oregon and Charokee Young of TAMU also had second place in individual events on Saturday.
Distin, who broke both national records this year, made a clean sweep of all four major titles, wining the South-eastern Conference (SEC) titles as well as the national titles and achieved the qualifying mark for the World Athletics Championships to be held at Hayward Field next month.
Meanwhile, South Dakota freshman Daniella Anglin was 14th overall in the high jump, clearing 1.80m.
Nelson, who was fourth last year and who ran a personal best 10.97 seconds in the semi-finals on Thursday, was second in the 100m, in 11.02 seconds (0.2m/s), the same time given to winner Julien Alfred of the University of Texas as another Jamaican Kevona Davis, also of Texas, was seventh in 11.22 seconds.
Davis was also fifth in the 200m in 22.50 seconds (1.3m/s).
Young was second in the 400m, running 50.65 seconds, Stacey Ann Williams of Texas was fifth with 51.13 seconds and Kavia Francis of Baylor University, who was eighth with 52.16 seconds.
Ackelia Smith of the University of Texas was fourth in the triple jump with 13.79m (-0.1m/s) and Danielle Spence of the University of Texas-San Antonio was 14th with 13.00m (0.2m/).
Demisha Roswell of Texas Tech, who was the favourite to win the 100m hurdles, finished seventh with 12.94 seconds (-0.2m/s) while Gabrielle Bailey of Kent State was 18th in the discus throw with 50.10m.
— Paul Reid