Shanieka Ricketts kept her hope of a first Olympic medal alive as she qualified for the finals of the women’s triple jump with one attempt, 14.47m (-0.4m/s) in the preliminaries held at Stade de France in Paris on Friday’s opening day of track and field at the Games.

Ricketts and Ackelia Smith, who jumped 14.09m (-1.3m/s), both qualified for the finals set for Saturday’s evening session.

The veteran Kimberly Williams, competing in her fourth Olympics, failed to advance. She was 20th overall with a best of 13.77m (0.9m/s).

It was the first time Williams was failing to make it to the last eight at the Olympic Games after placing sixth in London in 2012, seventh in Rio in 2016 and eighth in Tokyo in 2021.

Ricketts, who was fourth in Tokyo and who has two World Championships silver medals, wasted no time as she qualified on her first attempt, going over the automatic qualifying mark of 14.35m, second best overall behind Cuba’s Leyanis Perez-Hernandez who jumped 14.68m (0.0m/s) on her third attempt.

Smith, who just signed a professional contract, was fifth in her group and 10th overall in her first Olympic Games.

-Paul A Reid