Shantae Foreman finishes second in long jump at NCAA championships

Shantae Foreman of Clemson University jumped a big personal best 6.69m (0.2m/s) to place second in the long jump on Thursday’s second day of the NCAA Division 1 Outdoor track and field championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.Foreman, who will start favourite to win the triple jump on Saturday, went way over her previous personal best outdoors of 6.47m and recorded the 10th best jump ever by a Jamaican woman.She had jumped 6.47m at the 2021 World Athletics under-20 championships in Kenya and again at the NCAA East Regional two weeks ago.Britannie Johnson of the University of Purdue was 20th in the shot put with 16.02m.On the track, Dejanae Oakley of the University of Georgia leads the qualifiers in the 400m going into Saturday’s final, while Gabrielle Matthews of the University of Florida qualified for both the 100m and 200m finals.Oakley, the world leader, cruised to a 49.93 seconds clocking to win her heat and will hope to improve on her second place from last year in the final.Shenese Walker of Florida State University ran 10.94 seconds (0.3m/s) and Matthews clocked 11.02 seconds (0.6m/s) to advance to the 100m final but Carleta Bernard of the University of Texas failed to advance after running 11.17 (0.6m/s).British Virgin Islands Olympian Adejah Hodge of the University of Georgia ran a mind boggling 10.63 seconds (0.9m/s) to lead the 100m finalists, fifth fastest ever. It was a personal best, beating her previous best of 10.77 set in mid-April, while improving her world lead and setting a collegiate and meet record, beating the 10.75 seconds set by American ShaCarrie Richards in 2019.Matthews lowered her personal best in the 200m to 22.22 seconds (1.7m/s) when she was second behind Hodge in the semi-final of the 200m, beating her previous best of 22.41 seconds.Janela Spencer of Ohio State ran a season’s best 12.77 seconds (1.2m/s) and Tonie-Ann Forbes of Texas Tech ran 12.86 seconds (1.2m/s) to advance to the final of the 100m hurdles.Oneka Wilson of Clemson ran 12.93 seconds (1.0m/s) but failed to advance.-Paul A Reid