T&T's Tyra Gittens had a huge season-opener on the weekend winning double gold medals at the Ted Nelson Invitational at the Texas A&M-Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium in College Station, Texas in the United States.
The Texas A&M jumper along with two other local athletes including Cherisse Murray of the University of Alabama (UAB) and Dwight St Hillaire of the University of Kentucky, making a successful start to their respective indoor season at various meets.
Gittens picked up where she left off from last year's the COVID-19 affected season, setting the Aggie school record in the long jump landing at 6.62 metres on her first attempt to comfortably win the event.
The Texas A&M senior, who is currently ranked No 2 in the world and now holds school records in the indoor long jump, high jump and pentathlon, was quoted saying on her school's website: "Long jump and I have always had a weird relationship. Any time I think too hard, try to run fast and force it, that’s when I jump like my second attempt today. I just wanted to execute a good approach and that’s really all that was on my mind. When I went down the runway and I realised I was in the perfect position, I just took advantage of it."
Later, the multi-athlete dominated the high jump event claiming her second title with a clearance of 1.83m. Gittens passed on the first three opening heights and cleared the next four on her first attempts but was unable to clear 1.86m.
At the Vanderbilt Commodore Invitational in Nashville, Tennessee, Murray copped silver in the women's shot put event, with her best mark measuring 16.12m, her second attempt. The Crimson Tide senior also had throws of 15.59m, 15.44m, 15.83m, 15.72m and 16.06m.
In Lexington, Kentucky, St Hillaire celebrated an individual bronze and a relay silver at the McCravy Green Invitational at the Kentucky-Nutter Field House.
St Hillaire, a senior student-athlete at UK, sprinted to the third place in the men's 200m, clocking 21.09 seconds and later ran the third leg to help his Wildcats team finish runners-up in the 4x400m relay with a time of 3:09.85.
Earlier, St Hillaire faced the starter in the men's 60m dash and his 6.81-clocking in the preliminary round saw him qualify for the final with the fifth-fastest time but the local sprinter false-started, ending any chance of another podium finish.