Stona achieves World Champs qualifying standard
Roje Stona became the second Jamaican to get the World Athletics Championships qualifying mark in the men’s discus throw.
He broke his own week-old University of Arkansas programme record of 67.02m to win the event at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Invitational in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Saturday.
Stona, who improved on his personal best and Arkansas record of 66.64m set two weeks ago at the Mount San Antonio College Relays in California, achieved the automatic qualifying mark of 67.00m.
He joined Traves Smikle, who threw a personal best 68.14m at a meet held at Excelsior High in February as Jamaicans who have made the qualifying standard for the World Championships to be held in Budapest, Hungary, in August.
“This will give me more confidence going into the Jamaica trials this summer, knowing I just need to finish in the top three,” Stona said. “It’s always good to improve in each meet. I wanted to hit the standard here, so I achieved my goal.”
Stona, who moved up to number four on the all-time national list and is number six in the world this year, is joint number four all-time in US Collegiate history, according to a release from the University of Arkansas. He broke the stadium record of 64.59m in 2019.
Stona’s teammate and compatriot Ralford Mullings was second with 62.16m.
There were also wins for Jaydon Hibbert in the men’s triple jump, Ackera Nugent in the 100m hurdles, Phillip Lemonious in the 110m hurdles, and Shanieka Ricketts in the women’s triple jump.
Hibbert needed just one attempt, off a shortened run up, to record a season’s best and NCAA leading 17.17m (1.5m/s) and moved up to fifth place on the Arkansas all-time list with Carey McLeod placing third with 15.67m (1.1m/s). Wayne Pinnock was fourth with a career best 15.65m (-2.1m/s).
Ricketts, the World Championships silver medallist, won the women’s event with 14.06m (1.9m/s).
Nugent ran a season’s best 12.52sec (0.2m/s) to win the 100m hurdles, while Daszay Freeman also had her season’s best 13.42 seconds.
Lemonious won the 110m hurdles event with a season’s best 13.63 seconds (-0.2m/s) to beat former Olympic Games champion Omar McLeod, who ran 13.67 seconds.
