Crowning of 13 new champions a signature mark at ‘Trials’
There were 13 first-time national champions at last weekend’s Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) National Senior Championships held over four days at the National Stadium.
The championships will be used to help select teams for the World Athletics Championships, the Commonweath Games, as well as the NACAC Senior championships, all set to be held between mid-July and late August.
In addition to the 13 first-time champions, Shericka Jackson, who took a large share of the spotlight, was a first-time sprint double champion, winning the 100m in a season’s best 10.77 seconds and the 200m in a personal best 21.55 seconds, the third fastest ever.
Jackson, who had previously won the 200m national title in 2018 and the 400m in 2019, has won all three sprint national titles.
Olympic Games finalist and 4x400m medallist won her first women’s 400m title after running 50.29 seconds on Sunday, beating many-time champion Stephenie Ann McPherson in the process.
Britany Anderson won the 100m hurdles title, in only her second senior Trials as she clocked 12.53 seconds with two former champions — Megan Tapper who won last year and Danielle Williams — taking second and third, respectively.
American-born Andrew Hudson was virtually unknown to the Jamaican track and field fans until he held off 100m champion Yohan Blake to win the men’s 200m in his first track and field event on Jamaican soil.
The 2018 NACAC champion, who clocked a season’s best 20.10 seconds, is still awaiting clearance to represent Jamaica as he had represented the USA up to 2020.
Jevaughn Powell, the former Edwin Allen and Kingston College runner who represented the University of Texas-El Paso, where he is coached by former Jamaican quarter-mile great Davian Clarke, asserted himself on the weekend by winning the men’s 400m and hopes to be the face of the new wave of Jamaican men 400m running.
The self-styled ‘People’s Champion’, Navasky Anderson, will represent Jamaica for the first time in the 800m after breaking the 45-year-old national record at the NCAA Divsion One Outdoor championships at Hayward Field.
Anderson duly won the national title on Sunday, running in driving rain to clock 1:48.53 minutes.
Former NCAA 400m champion Chrisann Gordon-Powell won the women’s 800m title, her first-ever national title after her 2:00.35 minutes to hold off many-time champions Natoya Goule, who was losing a local competition for the first time ever on Jamaican soil.
Akelia Smith, who has qualified for the triple jump at the World Chamionships by virtue of world ranking, won the women’s long jump title at the championships with 6.56m (-0.9m/s).
A year ago the former Edwin Allen jumper, who now attends the University of Texas, represented Jamaica in the triple jump at the World Under-20 championships in Nairobi, Kenya.
Lushane Wilson won a long-overdue title in the men’s high jump, clearing 2.18m to beat favourite Romaine Beckford who also cleared 2.18m.
Wayne Pinnock won the men’s long jump with a personal best 8.14m and is in the qualifying for the World Championships, based on rankings while Kingston College jumper, 17-year-old Jaydon Hibbert, won his first senior title, taking the triple jump with 16.41 (-1.2m/s).
Adelle Tracey, who only qualified to run for Jamaica on Monday after transferring from Great Britain and who will contest the 800m at the World Championships with Gordon-Powell and Goule, won the women’s 1,500m in 4:17.47 minutes, while Brandon Kerr won the men’s equivalent in 4:22.79.
Daniel Cope, who had three fouls in the discus throw on Saturday, made amends by winning the men’s hammer with a personal best 62.28m.