AAG Development meet Archibald jumps world leading distance

Feb 16, 2021 Sports

By Calvin Chapman

Archibald during his 8.10m world leading leap on Sunday at the NTFC.

Cleveland Thomas (243) leads the pack in the men’s open 1500m race.

Kaieteur News – Guyana’s Long Jump record holder, Emmanuel Archibald, came very close to resetting his personal best of 8.12m that he had set in Jamaica, May 2019, after soaring to a distance of 8.10m at last Sunday’s first track and field meet of the year.
Hosted by the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) with approval from the National Covid-19 Task Force at the National Track & Field Center (NTFC), Archibald won’t be too disappointed in not resetting his record after a long layoff due to the pandemic.
More importantly, the 8.10m distance may see him at the top of the next updated Long Jump rankings for the year.
According to the World Athletics website, the biggest jump of the year prior to the Valentine’s Day meet at the NTFC was recorded by Darcy Roper of Australia, while Christopher Mitrevski and Shay Veitch recorded 7.92m and 7.63m respectively on February 13.
This will augur well for the morale of the Lindener as he aims to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games that will be contested this July-August.
During an invited comment with Kaieteur Sport, Archibald expressed confidence of making the 8.22m Olympic standard and posited that he believes that he will only get better since he was only afforded three jumps at this meet.
Archibald was also dominant in the feature 100m dash, winning the marquee event in an impressive 10.21s via the finals by time route. His time, according to the last update by the World Athletics website, was the fourth fastest of the year.
Archibald noted that in order to make the 10.05s 100m Olympic standard and even break into the 10s barrier, he has to do some work on his finishing.
Other Olympic hopeful in National Javelin record holder, Leslain Baird, also had a decent performance at the AAG’s first development meet. He threw a distance of 77.23, impressive but still a bit off his target of 85m which is the Olympic qualifying standard.
The athletes were generally grateful to be able to compete after such a long hiatus from the track especially with such an important year from Track & Field ahead.