Jamaicans on show at Trackwired Arkansas Grand Prix
A number of Jamaican athletes — some of whom are yet to achieve the qualifying marks for their events at this summer’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary — will compete at today’s Trackwired Arkansas Grand Prix in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Freshly minted NCAA champion Phillip Lemonious as well as his University of Arkansas teammate Roje Stona, who has the World Champs qualifying mark in the discus throw, and 800m specialist Navasky Anderson of Mississippi State University (MSU) are down to compete.
Meanwhile, Olympian Roxroy Cato ran a season’s best 49.55 seconds to win the men’s 400m hurdles at the Royal City Inferno track and field festival at Alumni Stadium, Guelph, Canada, on Wednesday.
Cato’s time, his fastest in six years, makes him the third-fastest Jamaican in the event so far this season behind Jaheel Hyde and Assinie Wilson.
On Friday in Arkansas, Stona will compete in two events, the discus throw as well as the shot put where he will have top Jamaican, so far, Rajindra Campbell.
Campbell is ranked 19th in the world with a personal best 19.31m and is in line for an invite to the World Championships, even if he does not make the qualifying mark of 21.40m.
Navasky Anderson has endured a difficult season after a break out 2022 season when he broke the 45-year-old Jamaican national record and qualified for the World Championships and was a finalists at the Commonwealth Games.
Anderson who will run the event along with MSU teammate and training partner Tyreese Reid was disqualified after winning the NCAA indoors and failed to make the outdoors final after being second last year.
If he is healthy, he could take aim at the 1:44.70 seconds qualifying time for the World Championships, while Reid, who missed the NCAA outdoors but ran a lifetime best 1:46.09 seconds, will also have ambitions of qualifying as well.
Lemonious, who ran a season’s best 13.24 seconds to win the NCAA 110m hurdles title earlier this month, is the third-ranked Jamaican on the World Athletics performance list, while Sean Rowe will continue to try and lower his season’s best in the 400m hurdles.
Demar Francis of Baylor University will contest both the men’s 200m and 400m races, while Joanne Reid of the University of Arkansas will run the women’s 400m.
O’Brien Wasome will line up in the men triple jump, while Shakwon Coke and Jullane Walker are set to contest the men’s long jump.
