Kobe Lawrence improves on his Oregon shot put record
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaica’s Kobe Lawrence improved his University of Oregon men’s shot put record after he threw 19.81 m to win the event at the Thane Baker Invitational at Kansas State University on Friday.
The mark was also a meet and facility record and is the third best in the NCAA so far this season.
Lawrence improved his own personal best which was 19.21m set a year ago at Arkansas; broke the meet record 17.20m that was set last year by another Jamaican, Yekini Bowen, then of Iowa Western, and the facility record 19.22m set 51 years ago by Tucker Smith of the University of Oklahoma in 1975.
There were a number of other wins for Jamaicans across a number of indoor meets that were held on Friday, including Jordan Turner, Salieci Myles and Skyler Franklin of LSU and Josh-Ty Brown of Southeastern Louisiana at the LSU Purple Tiger meet in Baton Rouge.
Turner jumped a big personal best of 7.96 m, the second best in the world, to win the men’s long jump.
The former Calabar High and Florida State University representative took only three attempts, opening with 7.93 m to beat his previous best of 7.67m.
The 2023 NACAC Under-23 bronze medalist was the world leader for a few hours until the University of Tennessee’s Cade Gray jumped 7.97m to win at the Vanderbilt Invitational later in the day.
Myles, who transferred from NAIA William Carey University, won the women’s 60m hurdles with 8.30 seconds in the final after she had clocked 8.36 seconds in the preliminaries.
Franklin, who won the 200m/400m double at the Jamaica National Junior Trials in 2024, took the women’s 200m in 24.19 seconds.
Brown threw 16.36 m to win the men’s shot put, while Kimola Hines of the University of Louisiana was third in the women’s weight throw with 16.76 m.
At the Jimmy Carnes Invitational in Gainesville, Florida, Florida State University’s Shenese Walker ran 23.15 seconds, the second best in the NCAA at the time, to win the women’s 200m.
Shamar Reid, also of FSU, was second in the men’s shot put with 16.67 m, with another Jamaican, Despiro Wray, also of FSU, taking third with 16.42 m.
Kirk Dawkins of Florida A&M University was second in the men’s 800 m in 1:53.01 seconds, while his teammate Tara Bert was third in the women’s race in 2:12.47 seconds.
Daniel Beckford of Northern Colorado University won the men’s 60m hurdles at the Graduate Classic held at the University of Nebraska, running 7.90 seconds in the final. The former Jamaica College runner had run 7.97 seconds to lead the preliminaries.
Cindy Rose of Indian Hill Community College was second in the women’s 1000m, running a personal best of 2:56.50 seconds.
At the Corky Classic at Texas Tech University, Brittianie Johnson of the University of Purdue continued her brilliant start with a massive new personal best of 19.68 m for second place in the women’s weight throw, beating the 19.16 m she set last weekend and moving three places up the Purdue all-time list to seventh place.
Carleta Bernard of the University of Texas ran a personal best of 7.19 seconds to lead the finalists in the women’s 60m semi-finals, but Royan Walters of William Carey was second in the men’s long jump invite at the Vanderbilt Invitational with a season’s best of 7.58m, with Lansford Cunningham of Division 2 Tusculum fourth with 7.31m.
