CLAY­TON CLARKE

Sport Cor­re­spon­dent

Na­tion­al long jump record hold­er Tyra Git­tens-Spotsville is one step clos­er to achiev­ing her goal of qual­i­fy­ing for this year’s World Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships set for Tokyo, Japan, from Sep­tem­ber 13-21. Git­tens-Spotsville is cur­rent­ly at 29th on the World Rank­ings, sev­en places above the 36th po­si­tion cut-off re­quired to se­cure a spot at the Cham­pi­onships.

The Tokyo Olympics Games 10th-placed fin­ish­er im­proved from 45th in the last rank­ing up­date thanks to her win (6.54 me­tres) at the Bar­ba­dos Grand Prix on Ju­ly 5 and her sec­ond place (6.71m) at the Ed Mur­phey Clas­sic in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee, one week lat­er.

How­ev­er, with the qual­i­fi­ca­tion win­dow open un­til Au­gust 24, 2025, Git­tens-Spotsville is still not sure of her place in Tokyo, un­less she gets over the au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard of 6.86m. Her best mark for the sea­son is 6.73m (+0.6), achieved in San Mar­cos, Texas on May 17. The 2017 Pan Amer­i­can bronze medal­list holds the Na­tion­al Out­door record of 6.96m.

She will have an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to sur­pass the stan­dard at the Na­tion­al Open Track and Field Cham­pi­onships at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, from Au­gust 2-3 and the North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (NACAC) Se­nior Cham­pi­onships in Freeport, Ba­hamas from Au­gust 15-17. If un­suc­cess­ful, she will keep her fin­gers crossed that she will be among the top 36 jumpers at the clos­ing of the qual­i­fy­ing pe­ri­od (Au­gust 1, 2024 - Au­gust 31, 2025).

She will be seek­ing to qual­i­fy for the sec­ond World Out­door team fol­low­ing her de­but at the 2022 edi­tion in Eu­gene, Ore­gon, USA. Ear­li­er this year, she com­pet­ed at the World In­door Cham­pi­onships in Nan­jing, Chi­na, where she was 12th in the long jump fi­nals with a dis­tance of 6.39m.

Git­tens-Spotsville was hap­py at her rise to a qual­i­fy­ing plac­ing, say­ing, “I am ex­cit­ed. I have been putting in a lot of work this year, and we’re now find­ing a good groove. I still ex­pect some amaz­ing jumps (lat­er in the sea­son). It has been a long jour­ney. My world rank­ings had dropped af­ter the med­ical de­c­la­ra­tion mix-up, which meant I lost all of my rank­ing points in 2022.”

With just over two months be­fore the start of the World Out­door Cham­pi­onships, Keshorn Wal­cott (men’s javelin), Jereem Richards (men’s 200m/400m), and Leah Bertrand (women’s 100m/200m) are the lone lo­cal ath­letes to notch the World stan­dards in their re­spec­tive events.

Wal­cott, the 2012 Olympic cham­pi­on, went over the 85.50m men’s javelin bar­ri­er when he threw 86.16m to fin­ish sev­enth at the Paris Olympic Games fi­nals on Au­gust 8, 2024. His best dis­tance for 2025 so far is 84.65m in his sea­son-open­ing meet at the Do­ha Di­a­mond League, in Qatar on May 16.

Richards has dipped un­der the 200m (20.16 sec­onds) and 400m (44.85) ask­ing times. In the short­er sprint, the 2022 World In­door 400m cham­pi­on has a qual­i­fy­ing best of 19.86 achieved on May 2, while in the one-lap race, his na­tion­al record of 43.78 set in fin­ish­ing fourth at the Paris Olympics on Au­gust 7, 2024, is among five marks the two-time Com­mon­wealth Games 200m gold medal­list has un­der the stan­dard.

Bertrand sped past the women’s 100m 11.07-stan­dard with clock­ings of 10.92 and 10.99 at the Na­tion­al Col­le­giate Ath­let­ics As­so­ci­a­tion (NCAA) East Re­gion­als in Jack­sonville, Flori­da on May 29 and 31, re­spec­tive­ly.

In the 200m, the Sim­plex sprint­er got un­der the 22.57 re­quired time with 22.54 in the semi­fi­nals of the NCAA Di­vi­sion One Fi­nals in Eu­gene, Ore­gon, USA on June 12.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion of T&T (NAAATT), Ephraim Ser­rette, told Guardian Me­dia Sports via What­sApp mes­sag­ing that he is tak­ing a cau­tious ap­proach to Git­tens-Spotsville’s jump up in the World Rank­ings.

He said, “Yes, she is at 29 (in the rank­ings), but you can nev­er tell, per­sons can still do au­to­mat­ic stan­dards that could knock an­oth­er ath­lete out.”