Trecia Smith, Veronica Campbell and Asafa Powell - FILE PHOTOS
MONACO, Italy (CMC)
JAMAICA WORLD CHAMPION Trecia Smith and Olympic 200-metre champion Veronica Campbell have maintained their positions in the first release of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) rankings for 2006.
Smith led off the Caribbean's record 12-medal haul at last year's World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, when she captured the triple jump gold with a world-leading 15.11 metres.
The England-based Jamaican holds her number two spot in the IAAF rankings behind her biggest rival Russian Olympic champion Tatyana Lebedeva.
Despite not winning a world title this year, Campbell is still second in both the 100 and 200 metres standings behind French woman Christine Arron and American Allyson Felix respectively.
Sprint sensation Asafa Powell remains the world's fourth best sprinter according to the rankings behind American World and Olympic champion Justin Gatlin, Ghana's Aziz Zakari and his Jamaican colleague Dwight Thomas.
PROMINEMT FIGURE
After some sizzling performances in 2005, Powell remains a prominent figure in the men's 100 metres despite a premature end to last season.
Powell sped to a rapid 9.77 seconds to reset the 100-metre world record in Athens last June, but a nagging groin injury forced him out of the remainder of the campaign.
Bahamian Tonique Williams-Darling also holds a secondary spot in the women's 400 metres, despite her Helsinki triumph in 49.55 seconds ahead of Jamaica-born American Sanya Richards.
A string of victories over the reigning Olympic champion in Zurich, Norwich and Monaco following the World Championship, catapulted Richards to the top of the quarter-mile rankings, relegating Williams-Darling to second.
Going into 2006, the Commonwealth Games will weigh heavily on Caribbean athletes' calendar along with the IAAF-sanctioned World Cup Series in Greece and the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) championships in Colombia in July.
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