BATON ROUGE – Two Lady Tigers took their place on the medal podium on the opening day of the 2015 Pan American Junior Championships as Aleia Hobbs won the silver medal in the 100-meter dash for the United States and Daeshon Gordon took home the bronze medal in the 100-meter hurdles for Jamaica at Edmonton’s Foote Field.
Hobbs was the first LSU All-American to compete on the first day of competition as she earned the right to line up in the 100 meters for the United States as the U.S. Junior Silver Medalist in the event.
After winning the first of three qualifying heats earlier in the day with the top time of the semifinal round with a wind-aided 11.37 (+2.3), Hobbs returned to the track in the evening session for the women’s 100-meter final where she added the Pan Am Junior Championships silver medal to her resume after crossing the finish line in 11.50 (-0.6) as the top American in the field.
Hobbs followed Trinidad & Tobago’s gold medalist Khalifa St. Fort (11.31) across the finish line for the silver medal, while fellow American Teahna Daniels (11.54) won the bronze medal for Team USA. The other finalists in the field were Jamaica’s Jonielle Smith (11.56), Brazil’s Vitoria Cristina Rosa (11.58), Barbados’ Tristan Evelyn (11.65), Jamaica’s Sashalee Forbes (11.73) and Canada’s Leya Buchanan (11.92).
It is the first of two medals that Hobbs hopes to win in her international debut for the United States as she will also team with fellow freshman teammate Mikiah Brisco as part of Team USA’s gold-medal favorite 4×100-meter relay pool as they will line up against the likes of Bahamas, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago in Sunday’s finale at 7 p.m. CT.
With Hobbs already taking her place on the medal podium with her silver-medal-winning run in the 100-meter final, Gordon followed by winning the bronze medal in the 100 hurdles in the final event of the day.
While racing into a strong headwind of -1.7 meters per second, Gordon crossed the finish line in third place with a time of 13.70 to become the second Lady Tiger to medal at this year’s Pan Am Junior Championships. In the final, Gordon took third place behind USA’s gold medalist Dior Hall (13.20) and Ecuador’s silver medalist Maribel Vanesa Caicedo (13.45).
Gordon wrapped up the race ahead of Trinidad & Tobago’s Jeminise Parris (13.98) in fourth place, while Canada’s Alexandra Aitkin (13.99), USA’s Jacklyn Howell (14.04), Chile’s Marin Clara (14.10) and Jamaica’s Yanique Thompson (14.11) rounded out the field. Gordon earned her spot on Jamaica’s team after setting the Jamaican junior record of 12.97 in the event at the Jamaican National Senior Championships in June.