BUDAPEST, Hungary — Despite not getting the results that she hoped for, Nayoka Clunis, who was the first Jamaican — male or female — to participate in the hammer throw at the World Athletics Championships last week in Budapest, Hungary, said she is looking forward to more success in the national colours.

Clunis, who had an outstanding season with six throws over 70.00m and also broke her own personal best several times, setting a lifetime best 71.18m at a meet in Canada in July, only managed one legal throw in Budapest 58.10m.

“The experience was great to know I really dialled in some things over the last couple of weeks, and I expected some big throws and it didn’t quite pan out as much as I hoped it would have,” Clunis told the Jamaica Observer on Saturday.

“I did everything that I could have done and should have done, but they fell through,” she said.

Competing at night under the lights was a new thing for Clunis.

“It’s normally like 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm, something like that. So adjusting to a later schedule and executing as well as I did, it’s a new feeling. As I said, I’m excited to see what I can do in the next couple of months or years because this was good.”

Clunis, a former heptathlete while at Excelsior High and who attended Cloud County, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Tennessee, was eager to see what the future brings.

“I competed well, it’s just that I didn’t quite get the throw perfect. It was probably 95 per cent there, except the finish, but I’m not mad about it. I’m grateful and satisfied. I’m a little bit disappointed, but I’m thankful for how far I’ve gotten this season, with all I’ve been dealing with, and I’m hoping that next year, barring injuries and other stuff, I will be able to get to the goals that I wanted to achieve this season.”

In hindsight, Clunis said there was nothing she would do differently.

“From my warm up to get into the call room, everything was done exactly how I needed to do it. The throws were executed perfectly like how I normally take those. It’s just that coach had prepared us for this moment. I have never felt these connections before, and then I said like one-two-three was perfect, if I could have just stayed a little bit longer, and four was rushed, but it’s like getting to three was exactly what I needed to do.”

Clunis added, “It’s just getting a lot more of those reps in practice and executing them on the big stage. I’m very hungry, 71.25m made finals, come on, man, like I know like there’s a lot more in the tank and I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to represent Jamaica on this stage.”

Against her frontal upbeat reaction, comes the opposite emotion.

“There is a kind of disappointment, but at the same time I’m satisfied of all the work that I put in, doing 71.00m five times this season, consistent over 70.00m, I’ve made every single finals that [I] have competed in this year, so this year has been great. Not the icing on the cake that I’ve prepare for at the World Championships, but I am grateful to what I’ve been able to accomplish and I’m thankful for coach and everyone that has helped me to even get to this point.

“So I was mentally prepared, emotionally, physically prepared to do something great, it just fell a little bit short,” she said.

Clunis now looks to wind down.

“Yes, I need some rest, I’ve been training since July of last year, my body’s like, girl, you need two weeks, three weeks, maybe a month.”

She hopes that she has opened the door for other Jamaican hammer throwers such as Central American and Caribbean Games silver medallist Erica Belvit, who she said “was qualified to get here and it’s disappointing that she wasn’t selected”.

“I feel for her, because we’ve talked a lot about getting to this point at the end of the season, and to say that she wasn’t selected and I did, and even though I didn’t perform how I wanted to, I know that next year the hunger for me, Erica, Marie Forbes, Daniel Cope, we’re there and we just need the support to help taking some of the burdens off, because if you ever know how much we are going through and still being able to accomplish the things that we are doing.

“Jamaica needs to give us some love as we are doing a lot on our own, like seriously, how we don’t get the love and respect that we need explicitly to make some of these decisions a lot easier. You guys have absolutely no idea. So when I say that I am absolutely grateful to even make it here, to even make it here is just amazing, like seriously amazing.

“I am very proud of all that I have accomplished and what we will be accomplishing in the next few years. It just takes a village and right now our village is a little bit small and we hope to make it a little bit bigger by next year,” Clunis concluded.