Jovanee Jarrett

National female long jump champion Jovanee Jarrett stepped up her preparation for the World Indoor Championships, by producing a personal best and World Indoor automatic qualifying mark of 6.60 metres to win the women's invitational long jump at the Louisiana State University Twilight Indoor meet recently.

Jarrett finished ahead of Canada's Alice Falaiye, who finished second with a leap of 6.27 metres. Jarrett, who represented Jamaica at the World Champion-ships in Berlin last year, was improving on her 6.48 metres fourth-place finish two weeks ago at the Tyson Invitational Meet, and was elated with her performance.

happy about personal best

"I am very happy to achieve a personal best in my third meet of the season. I was surprised to jump so far because in my training I was not doing things to attain that standard," Jarrett said. The athlete, who had an indoor previous best of 6.58 metres, done two years ago at the Notre Dame Meet, says she is looking forward to the World Indoor Championships.

"If selected for Doha, I know that I will be able to do very well as I am really motivated after Berlin last year. I did not do as well as I had expected, and my goal after Berlin was to get ready for the World Indoors as I wanted to make up for that performance."

Jamaica had more success at the meet as former senior 110 metres hurdle representative Eric Keddo was victorious in the men's 60 metres hurdles event, as he won easily in 7.79 seconds to become the third fastest Jamaican in that event so far this season.

Richard Thompson, Trinidad's 2008 Beijing Olympic 100 metres silver medallist, also had a good tune-up for World Indoors as he produced a season's best of 6.59 seconds to win the men's 60-metre dash.