Early Season - Classic Archibald anxious to compete this weekend

Early Season – Classic Archibald anxious to compete this weekend

Mar 09, 2020 Sports

By Calvin Chapman
Guyana’s National men’s long jump record holder; Emmanuel Archibald, who is currently a student-athlete at the University of the West Indies’ Mona Campus in Jamaica, in an interview with Kaieteur Sport, has signaled his excitement to compete in Guyana this weekend when the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) hosts the Early Season Classic at the National Track and Field Center (NTFC), Leonora.
In an invited comment with this publication last week, the head of the AAG, Aubrey Hutson had explained that his body was putting everything in place to have the event run off as scheduled despite the current political situation in Guyana.
Archibald holds the national long jump record of 8.12m, a distance that he made at the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association’s (JAAA) All Comers meet in May 2019 but the former Basketball player will have to go 10cm better if he is achieve his goal of qualifying for the Tokyo Games.
Since the revamp of the Olympic Standards, the new qualifying mark for the men’s long jump at the Summer Olympics is 8.22m and Archibald is confident of making that leap and shared with Kaieteur Sport that he is fully fit and ready to compete.
The athlete posited that, “Last year was really good for me in the first and middle periods of the season but at the back end I really didn’t perform so well especially with some substandard performances at the Pan American Games in Peru, but I have overcome some difficulties and I am confident that I can reset this my record and make that 8.22m standard for the Olympics.”
Archibald will be competing at the UWI Pelican Track and Field Invitational this Wednesday at the UWI/Usain Bolt Track Stadium in Mona, Jamaica where he will be pitted against some of the top athletes in the region.
However, the Guyanese is anticipating this weekend’s meet at the NTFC more, since it has been a while since he competed in Guyana.
The Early Season Classic that is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday will also serve as the final round of qualification for the Guyanese hopefuls looking to make the team for 49th Caribbean Free Trade Games (CARIFTA) that will be held in Bermuda this Easter weekend. So far, a total of 12 Guyanese have qualified for the junior games that see in excess of 20 nations participating yearly.

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