KINGSTON, Jamaica – LSU Track & Field’s list of Olympians rose to five Saturday night at the National Stadium as Damar Forbes won the men’s long jump title with a seasonal best and Natoya Goule took the title in the women’s 800 meters at the Jamaican Championships to book their trip to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympic Games.
Forbes, who made his Olympics debut in London four years ago, qualified for his second-straight Jamaican Olympic Team while winning his fifth career Jamaican long jump title with a seasonal-best mark of 26 feet, 9 ¼ inches in the competition. He was the only jumper in the field to eclipse the Olympic qualifying standard in the event with his performance.
Forbes, the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Champion in the long jump, finished more than one foot ahead of the rest of the field as Jerome Wilson scored the Jamaican silver medal with a best of 24-11 ¾ on the day.
5 time Jamaican National Champion!!✋🏾
— Damar Forbes (@damarforbes) July 3, 2016
While Forbes became LSU’s fourth confirmed Olympian in one of the early events in Saturday’s action at the Jamaican Senior Championships, Goule became the fifth when she was crowned the Jamaican Champion in the women’s 800 meters with a winning run of 2 minutes, 0.23 seconds. That time was nearly one second faster than Kenia Sinclair in second place with an Olympic qualifying run of 2:01.11.
Goule, who swept NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor titles in the 800 meters in 2013 while at LSU, had already achieved the Olympic qualifying standard with a seasonal best of 1:59.38 run in Atlanta one month ago.
VIDEO: Natoya Goule wins Women 800m Final Jamaica Olympic Trials 2016
📺 https://t.co/8KnenCIwqj pic.twitter.com/tdo84k9oN8— ★Sports Enthusiast★ (@JustSportsTweet) July 3, 2016
They joined LSU’s growing list of Olympians competing in Rio de Janeiro after Gabriel Mvumvure (Zimbabwe), Kelly-Ann Baptiste (Trinidad & Tobago) and Richard Thompson (Trinidad & Tobago) had already qualified to represent their countries in recent weeks. And more are sure to come as the Jamaican Senior Championships wrap up on Sunday night at the National Stadium in Kingston.
LSU’s 2016 NCAA Outdoor Silver Medalist Fitzroy Dunkley took another big step toward Olympics qualification in the 400-meter dash on Saturday when he earned a narrow victory in the second of three semifinal heats where he crossed the finish line in 45.31 seconds ahead of Rusheen McDonald in second place at 45.32. Dunkley’s 45.31 was the second-fastest time amongst the three heats of 21 semifinalists in the event.
Former Lady Tiger Jonique Day saw her Road To Rio end in the semifinal round of the women’s 400-meter dash as she placed 13th overall with a time of 53.44 for seventh place in the second semifinal heat.
Advancing to the semifinals of the 200-meter dash were former 15-time All-American Lady Tiger Samantha Henry-Robinson and 2016 NCAA Outdoor finalist Renard Howell as they earned their spot on the track Sunday on the final day of the meet. Henry-Robinson was the third-fastest qualifier for the semifinal in the first round of the women’s 200 meters as her time of 23.06 (-0.3) was good for second place in the second heat while Howell also placed second in the second heat of the men’s prelims with the sixth-fastest time of the day at 20.52 (+0.5).
Two former LSU All-Americans narrowly missed earning their spot on Jamaica’s Olympic Team during Friday’s competition as Isa Phillips and Nikita Tracey were both the fifth-place finishers in the final in both the men’s and women’s 400-meter hurdles. Phillips ran 49.43 for fifth place in the men’s final after Tracey crossed the finish line in 57.41 for fifth place in the women’s final.