Record-breaking Clunis says ‘nothing changes’ in Games qualification bid
Despite breaking the national record when she threw 71.83m in the women’s hammer throw at Saturday’s Tuscon Elite Classic at the University of Arizona, Jamaica’s Nayoka Clunis says her objective remains the same as she continues to push for the Olympic Games’ qualifying mark of
74.00m.
Clunis, who had a breakout season in 2023 when she participated at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, broke the eight-year-old record of 71.48m set in 2016 by Daina Levy. The effort beat Clunis’s previous best of 71.18m set last year.
“Nothing changes,” she told the Jamaica Observer on Saturday.
“[I am] trusting my coach’s plan for me and for the rest of the season. [I want to] keep adjusting to the technical changes I need to get to where I want to be in August.”
She added: “[The throw was] a great indicator [of] where I am in my training cycle.. [I am] excited about this one.”
Clunis said she was unaware that she had broken the national record on her final throw, after she had set a season best 71.13m earlier. “We didn’t have a board to see. I heard after the fact that it was 71.83m,” she explained.
The former NCAA outdoor finalist and many-time national champion is on track to be where she wants to be come August as she is now ranked 17th in the world. And with the period for qualification ending on June 30, she is well-placed to earn an invitation to compete at the Paris Olympics which starts in July.
There is a quota of 32 athletes for each field event at major championships. In the event that 32 athletes do not achieve the qualifying mark, World Athletics invites athletes in the top 32 to fill out the fields.
Meanwhile at the same meet, Jamaica’s former Commonwealth Games champion Danniel Thomas-Dodd won the women’s shot put with 18.87m, beating the American pair of Adelaide Aquilla (18.47m) and Jessica Ramsey (18.34m). Another Jamaican, Lloydricia Cameron, was fifth with 17.46m.
National shot put champion Rajindra Campbell threw a season’s best 21.69m, the tied fourth-best outdoors. He was second behind American Payton Otterdahl’s 22.41m.
Campbell’s mark beat the previous best 21.56m he threw while placing third at Drake Relays a week earlier. Another Jamaican Moses Parkinson was 12th with 17.33m.
Fedrick Dacres was third in the men’s discus throw with a best of 64.07m, while Adrienne Adams was ninth in the women’s discus throw with 54.69m.
Kimberly Williams was tied for third in the women’s high jump with a best of 1.82m.
