Courtesy University of Kentucky

T&T’s Tyra Gittens closed off her most successful appearance at the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division I Indoor Championships, nabbing a second gold medal and bagged a bronze.

A day after winning the pentathlon with a collegiate-record mark (4,746 points), Gittens captured two more medals winning the high jump and placing third in the long jump on Friday at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas in the United States.

In the high jump event, the University of Texas A& M redshirt junior missed her first attempt at 1.76m but bounced back and cleared heights of 1.81m, 1.84m and 1.87m on first attempt jumps before bowing out of the competition with a winning height of 1.90m. The clearance marks the fifth time in her career that she has jumped 6 feet-2 inches or higher.

Minutes later after excelling in the high jump, Gittens was back on the field competing in the long jump. She had a sluggish start in the long jump on her first two leaps, the multi-sport athlete sped down the runway and leaped 6.43m to qualify for the finals. She recorded a mark of 6.54m in her first attempt in the finals before, flying out to a school record leap of 6.68m in round five, which propelled her to second place.

In the final round of jumps, Gittens fell to third place after Claire Bryant of Florida jumped 6.70m to move to second. Winning was Texas junior Tara Davis with 6.93.

According her Texas A&M website, after Gittens racked up 26-points on the first two days of competition, Texas A&M added 31-points to place second overall in the teams standings with a total of 57-points. Fifty-seven (57) is the most points scored at an NCAA Indoor Championships meet in women’s programme history and equalled the most points by a runner-up team. LSU scored 57-points at the 1999 indoor championships losing to Texas by four.

Two more T&T athletes featured at the NCAA Championships including Dwight St Hillaire of the University of Kentucky (UK) and Cherisse Murray of the University of Alabama.

St Hillaire did not pick up any individual medals but helped the UK relay team cop silver in the Men’s 4x400m final on Saturday with a school-record time of 3:03.61. He along with his teammates Lance Lang, Jacob Smith and Kennedy Lightner picked up All America-honours for the 4x400m relay team and St Hillaire was also recognised for the 400m.

On Friday, St Hillaire advanced to Saturday’s finals in the 400m during the preliminaries, coming through with a 45.97 time to finish in seventh place. In the medal race, he placed eighth with a 45.89-clocking.

Murray finished a disappointing 13th in the women’s shot put event with her best throw measuring 16.12m which she opened with. The UA senior’s throws deteriorated in the next two rounds with marks of 16.07m and 15.92m, respectively and did not advance to the final round.

In Jamaica, former national sprint champion Emmanuel Callender placed fifth in the men’s 100m at the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) Qualification Trials Series at the National Stadium in Kingston.

Callender clocked 10.58 to place fifth in section seven of the timed final which was won by Great Britain’s Zharnel Hughes, who equalled the world lead of 10.14 in the men’s 100m. Oblique Seville also raced in heat seven and took the overall second spot in 10.18 while former World champion Yohan Blake won his heat in 10.20 to place third overall.