OREGON, USA — Michael-Andre Edwards needed just one jump to qualify for today’s final of the men’s triple jump at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships at Hayward Field, Eugene, Oregon, with 16.00m (1.2m/s) — the exact automatic qualifying mark, but says it was the “worst 16.00m jump ever”.

Edwards, who won all his major finals this year including, Carifta, the ISSA Boys’ Champs and Penn Relays, was critical of his second phase but said it was not anything he can’t fix before the final, adding it was more mental than physical.

Jamaica’s other entrant, Rekelme Hunter, failed to make progress after he was fifth in his group with a best of 15.40m (0.6m.s), for 17th overall.

David Brown is also through to the final of the men’s high jump after clearing 2.14m, for seventh in his group.

Edwards, who is only contesting the long jump here, said regardless of how he felt about his execution, he was happy to be in the final where he expects to challenge for a medal.

“I guess I’m grateful. I guess it wasn’t a good jump technically, or I didn’t execute at all,” said Edwards.

He explained that the ‘step’ phase wasn’t as good as he wanted it to be, “the hop was very good. It’s one of our better ones this season, but the step was dead. My jump phase is always good, so that’s normal at this point.”

He was confident, however, that he would be able to fix the issue.

Michael-Andre Edwards is through to the triple jump final at the World Athletics Under-20 Championship in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo: Collin Reid)

“I just need to keep my brain on my head next time. I think that’s about it. I know what I did wrong because I’ve been trying to correct it during training, so it’s nothing really deep.”

American Miles Nesbeth, who was topped the group with a personal best 16.41m (1.3m/s), had finished behind Edwards at the Penn Relay in April and could be one of his toughest challengers in the final.

Nesbeth is also a close friend and a future college teammate at Kansas State University but Edwards says there will be no love lost when the competition starts today.

“He’s my good friend. It’s a prelim so it does not matter as long as we both got an automatic qualification, we don’t care,” he said, “we are still friends today but not tomorrow.”

Edwards said he was excited to have qualified for the final in his first World Under-20 championships.

“I’ve always had great experience to represent Jamaica, but being at the world level is a lot different. So I’m hoping to do something special in the final.”

Hunter started with a jump of 15.24m (0.1m/s) and fouled his second attempt and despite a better effort in the final round, fell short.

Brown cleared the first two heights on his first attempt — 2.00m and 2.05m, but needed a second attempt to get over 2.10m and three attempts at 2.14m to get into the final.