Williams clocks 60m hurdles world indoor-leading time
THERE were four Jamaican winners, including two-time World Athletics Championships gold medallist Danielle Williams, at Saturday’s Clemson Invitational indoor track and field meet in South Carolina.
Williams won the women’s 60m hurdles in a world indoor-leading 7.94 seconds. Oneka Wilson of Clemson was second to Williams with 8.04, her season’s best.
University of Georgia’s Dejanae Oakley and the Clemson University pair of Shantae Foreman and Kimeka Smith also topped their respective events.
Oakley ran a personal best 35.94 to win the women’s 300m, beating teammate Shaquena Foote (36.50). The Clemson pair of Briana Campbell, who clocked a lifetime best 37.76, and Shanique Williams (38.03) were eighth and ninth, respectively.
Foreman produced an indoor personal best 6.50m to win the women’s long jump, the second best of all time at Clemson. That effort saw her tied for second on the NCAA ranking list. Foreman improved on her previous best of 6.37m and also passed Monyetta Haynesworth’s 6.48m, set in 1992, for second on the Clemson all-time list.
Former Excelsior High athlete Smith threw a personal best 15.98m in the women’s shot put, in her first collegiate competition. The effort was a fifth all-time best for Clemson.
In the women’s weight throw, former Holmwood Technical standout Cedricka Williams of the University of Tennessee was third with a personal best 18.90m, breaking into the programme’s all-time top 10 in ninth place.
Another freshman, Danielle Noble, was third in the women’s high jump with a mark of 1.67m.
Elsewhere, on Saturday’s second day of the UAB Vulcan Invite at the Crossplex in Birmingham, Alabama, Jade Ann Smith of Florida A&M University won the women’s long jump with 5.68m. She had won the triple jump on Friday evening.
Britannie Johnson of Purdue set a second personal best in as many days after she placed third in the women’s shot put at the University of Kentucky’s Rod McCravy Invite with 15.57m. The throw placed her at number seven on the programme’s all-time list.
Johnson beat her previous best of 14.79m set last year and also set a lifetime best 19.16m in the weight throw, the 10th best in Purdue history.
Oneika Brissett of Texas A&M University-Kingsville clocked 56.11 to win the women’s 400m at the Leonard Hilton Memorial at University of Houston.
Former Cornwall College ISSA Athletics Championships finalist Lansford Cunningham set a Tusculum University programme record 7.35m when he finished third in the men’s long jump during the Tryon International Collegiate Opener at Mill Spring, North Carolina.
Cunningham, who sat out all of last season with a hamstring injury, surpassed his previous best of 7.06m. He has the fifth-best mark in the event in NCAA Division 2, and broke the previous school record of 7.23m set last year by Joshua Stephens.
Cunningham was fifth in the men’s 300m in 35.19 seconds.