KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaicans Dugion Blackman and Shemar Chambers became first-time indoor track and field conference champions Thursday as the NCAA indoor season revs up for its final weekend of conference championships.

Former Jamaica College runner Blackman won the men’s 800m and Chambers, who attended Calabar High, won the men’s 200m at the inaugural Colonial Athletics Association (CAA) indoor championships held in Virginia Beach.

Blackman of Hampton University won the 800m at the CAA Conference Indoors in a personal best 1:48.46 after leading the preliminaries with 1:52.71.

Chambers, who led the CAA Conference in the 200m with 20.96 seconds, ran 21.00 seconds on Thursday to win the conference title. He was second in the 400m in 46.37 seconds and part of the 4x400m relay team that won the title.

Marie Forbes set a personal best and Clemson University programme record 22.41m for third place in the women’s weight throw at the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) indoor championships at the University of Louisville, Kentucky on Thursday. The mark beat the 22.30m set in 2013 by Brittney Waller and bettered her previous best of 21.94m set last month.

Defending champion Daniel Cope, also of Clemson, was third in the men’s weight throw with a season’s best of 21.93m

Okera Myrie and Kiara Grant, both also of Clemson, ran personal best times to qualify for the women’s 200m final.

Myrie clocked 23.39 seconds and Grant ran 23.44 seconds to get past the first round on Thursday.