Tyra Git­tens-Spotsville will be­gin this coun­try's quest for gold at the World Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships, which gets un­der­way at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Tokyo, Japan, on Sat­ur­day (Sep­tem­ber 13).

Git­tens-Spotsville will line up in the qual­i­fy­ing round of the women's long jump card­ed for 5.30 am (T&T time) dur­ing the af­ter­noon ses­sion of the first day of ac­tion.

She is list­ed in Group A and com­pet­ing in 13th spot among the 18 com­peti­tors. Group B will al­so field 18 jumpers who will be com­pet­ing in the ad­ja­cent long jump pit. The 2025 North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (NACAC) Open Cham­pi­onships bronze medal­list will be up against the Paris Olympic cham­pi­on Tara Davis-Wood­hall of the USA, the world leader at 7.12 me­tres.

France's Hi­lary Kpatcha, with the fifth best dis­tance in the world (7.02m), as well as fel­low sev­en-me­tre jumpers Ja­maican Ack­e­lia Smith and Chantel Mal­one of the British Vir­gin Is­lands, both with per­son­al bests of 7.08m, are al­so among en­trants.

Git­tens-Spotsville's top dis­tance for 2025 is 6.73m, which is the 11th best in the field.

Group B will fea­ture reign­ing World In­door gold medal­list USA's Claire Bryant and 2019/2022 World and 2021 Tokyo Olympic win­ner Malai­ka Mi­ham­bo of Ger­many.

The T&T jumper will be aim­ing to get over 6.75m to au­to­mat­i­cal­ly qual­i­fy for the fi­nals on Sun­day (7.14 am T&T time) or be among the best 12 across the two groups.

Git­tens-Spotsville is com­pet­ing in her sec­ond World Out­door Cham­pi­onships and will be seek­ing to reach the fi­nal af­ter her 19th plac­ing in the qual­i­fy­ing round at the 2022 Worlds in Eu­gene, Ore­gon, USA.

She says chan­nelling her en­er­gies on her goals is key to her do­ing well in Tokyo.

"This last phase is all about fo­cus, fo­cus­ing on the things that re­al­ly mat­ter and is not nec­es­sar­i­ly about a re­sult. It is fo­cus­ing on stay­ing calm, stay­ing present and man­ag­ing my emo­tions and ex­cite­ment. The work that need­ed to be done on the track has been done," said the na­tion­al in­door and out­door record-hold­er.

The mul­ti-US Col­le­giate in­door and out­door medal­list is hap­py that she is in­jury-free at this stage of the sea­son.

"My body has held up quite well. I have had a great team around me this year. I have been do­ing a phe­nom­e­nal job stay­ing up with my re­cov­ery. It has been awe­some fin­ish­ing a sea­son healthy. This length of trav­el (to Japan) is al­ways dif­fi­cult and so mak­ing sure I am stay­ing con­sis­tent in what I need to and mak­ing sure I am loose and re­laxed. The big key­word for Tyra is stay­ing re­laxed, keep­ing my ner­vous sys­tem down and keep­ing in the present."

Sprint­er Leah Bertrand will be the first lo­cal on the track when she goes in­to bat­tle in the heats of the women's 100m at 5.55 am to­mor­row. Bertrand is in the sixth of the sev­en races. The three-time na­tion­al 100m cham­pi­on will start in lane six and will be brim­ming with con­fi­dence af­ter her fourth-place fin­ish in the women's 100m at the Bei­jing Con­ti­nen­tal Tour last Sun­day.

The Sim­plex club mem­ber is among three sub-11 run­ners in the field. Her 10.92-sec­ond per­son­al best (pb) time is sec­ond on­ly to Amer­i­can Ky­la White (10.84), who is next to her in lane five. Liber­ian Des­tiny Smith-Bar­nett, with a pb of 10.99 es­tab­lished in 2024, as well as Amy Hunt of Great Britain and North­ern Ire­land (11.02), are among those to watch.

De­fend­ing cham­pi­on Sha'Car­ri Richard­son (USA) and two-time reign­ing 200m win­ner Sheri­ka Jack­son (Ja­maica) are stand­out names in heat three, with world leader Melis­sa Jef­fer­son-Wood­en (USA) the top en­trant in heat one. Two-time World Un­der-20 100m cham­pi­on Tina Clay­ton (Ja­maica) heads the field in heat three, with her com­pa­tri­ot, 38-year-old 10-time World cham­pi­on Shelly-Ann Fras­er-Pryce (Ja­maica) list­ed for the sev­enth heat. The women's 100m semi­fi­nals and fi­nals are sched­uled for Sun­day.

The first win­ners of this year's World Cham­pi­onships will be crowned on the open­ing morn­ing ses­sion, with the women's and men's 35 kilo­me­tres race walk set for 6.30 pm tonight (6:30 am Sat­ur­day/Japan time).

Jereem Richards will start his cam­paign for gold on Sun­day with the heats of the men's 400m. The 2022 World In­door 400m and 2018/2022 Com­mon­wealth 200m cham­pi­on will be eye­ing a spot in the semi­fi­nals, which are set for Tues­day and the fi­nals on Thurs­day. Keshorn Wal­cott will be seek­ing to add the World ti­tle to the 2012 Lon­don Olympic javelin gold ho­n­ours. The qual­i­fy­ing round for the men's javelin is slat­ed for Sep­tem­ber 17 and the fi­nal, a day lat­er.

Bertrand is ex­pect­ed back on the track for the women's 200m heats on Sep­tem­ber 17. The semi­fi­nals and fi­nals are Sep­tem­ber 18 and 19, re­spec­tive­ly.

T&T's four-mem­ber con­tin­gent is the small­est lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the pre­mier glob­al track and field meet in more than 20 years. The lo­cal com­peti­tors will be seek­ing to win this coun­try's World Out­door medal since Richards, Jarin Solomon, Ren­ny Quow, Machel Ce­de­nio and Lalonde Gor­don teamed up to win the men's 4x400m re­lay ti­tle at the 2017 World Cham­pi­onships in Lon­don, Eng­land. Richards was al­so third in the men's 200m.

Michelle-Lee Ahye, Re­yare Thomas, Se­moy Hack­ett, Khal­i­fa St Fort and Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste were the last lo­cal women to earn a World medal af­ter they fin­ished third in the women's 4x100m in Bei­jing, Chi­na in 2015.

Ato Boldon on this coun­try's first medal at the Cham­pi­onships first held in 1983 when he race to 100m bronze in 1995. Josanne Lu­cas was the first T&T women to earned a top three fin­ish af­ter her third plac­ing in the women's 400m hur­dles in 2009.

Lo­cal ath­letes have won a to­tal 14 medals (3, 4, 7) at the cham­pi­onships which were first staged in 1983.

Gold

Ato Boldon (men's 200m-1997), Je­hue Gor­don (men's 400m hur­dles-2013), men's 4x400m (2017)

Sil­ver

Men's 4x100m (2001, 2005, 2009), Men's 4x400m (2015)

Bronze

Ato Boldon (men's 100m-1995, 2001)

Dar­ryl Brown (men's 100m-2003) Josanne Lu­cas (women's 400m hur­dles-2009), Ren­ny Quow (men's 400m-2009), Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste (Women's 100m-2011), women''s 4x100m (2015)..