Just one more triple jump for Hibbert before Budapest

Don’t look for world-leading triple jumper Jaydon Hibbert or his University of Arkansas teammates to be competing here, there, and everywhere between now and the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. According to the man who coaches Hibbert and long jumpers Wayne Pinnock and Carey McLeod, he wants them to be sharp for the Worlds but won’t put them on the runway often.

Asked to outline his plan for competition between the Jamaica National Championships and Budapest, Arkansas jumps coach Travis Geopfert replied, “Obviously, competition readiness is a real thing, so if there are opportunities that come up that somewhere roughly in the midpoint between the Jamaican Trials and the World Championships, we’ll take advantage of that.”

Working in an extended-approach run, Hibbert did 17.68 metres to win the triple jump at the meet often referred to as the Trials on Sunday. A day earlier, Pinnock won the long jump with a distance of 8.32 metres. 2019 World champion Tajay Gayle was second and McLeod third. All three will head to Budapest.

Pinnock, the 2018 World Under-20 long jump bronze medal winner, and McLeod both have big meet experience. Pinnock was ninth in last year’s World Championships and McLeod was on duty at the 2021 Olympics.

Given that there are five weeks between the Nationals and the World Championships, which start on August 19, Geopfert is mapping competition opportunities to keep his pupils sharp.

“You know, everybody’s different and opportunities are different for different athletes,” he said in a possible reference to 2023 NCAA long winner McLeod, who will be joining the ranks of professional athletes, “so we’re going to navigate that as it goe,s but if there are opportunities in the middle, somewhere in the middle between those two, we’re going to do it.”

Then for emphasis, he added, “Now, we’re not going to overdo it.”

Geofpert has spent the whole college season trying to keep Hibbert, Pinnock, and McLeod fresh for the big assignments ahead. For example, the Nationals were only the eighth meet of the year for the 18-year-old World under-20 champion. Following that philosophy, the coach concluded, “I’d like to look at one competition, possibly two, but mostly likely one, and kinda just keep that sharpness and that readiness going.”

Hibbert’s winning National Championships mark was the longest triple jump ever done in Jamaica and follows a US college season where he set world under-20 records and won NCAA titles indoors and outdoors.

Hibbert’s world-leading jump was 17.87 metres in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on May 13. That measurement is a mere five centimetres off the national record held by James Beckford.