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From:TheBahamasWeekly.com Sports
Last week we chronicled
the top Bahamian athletes who participated in the Triple Jump in international
competition. The Bahamas’ Great Triple Jump Tradition ( Part 1 ) This week we continue to the present time. Michael Johnson
The year after Timmy Barrett made his big breakthrough Michael Johnson made his, competing in the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg. Johnson jumped 15.02m for ninth place. Barrett finished one place behind in tenth with a jump of 14.40m. Johnson enrolled in Mankato State that fall. Obed Gardiner
Obed Gardiner competed in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland. He jumped 14.79m. Gardiner attended Southern Illinois University. Don Miller
Don Miller competed at the 1970 Commonwealth Games, jumping 14.52m. Miller also attended Southern Illinois University. He is a brother of Leslie Miller. Dudson Higgins
Dudson Higgins won a Silver medal at the 1986 Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships in Mexico City. Higgins leapt 16.38m. He won a Bronze medal at the Pan American Junior Championships in Orlando that year with a 16.11m jump. Dudson attended The University of Alabama. Emmit Higgins Emmit Higgins, brother of Dudson, won a Bronze medal in the 1990 Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships in Havana in 1990. His jump was 15.19m. Winning the event with a 16.69m jump was Cuban Yoelbi Quesada who went on to win the 1997 World Championships crown. Emmit attended St. Augustine’s College in North Carolina. Patterson Johnson
Patterson Johnson attended Arkansas State University. Johnson competed in the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 where he jumped 16.03m to finish 20th place in the qualifying round. Frank Rutherford
Rutherford had never made a national team as a junior athlete but made up for it in his senior years. At the 1985 Sr. Central American and Caribbean Championships in Nassau, Rutherford, at the age of 20, finished in fifth place with a 15.87m jump. The University of Houston athlete won the 1986 and 1987 NCAA Championships in the Triple Jump. At the 1986 Central American and Caribbean Games in the Dominican Republic Rutherford placed second with a jump of 16.40m. At the inaugural IAAF World Indoor Championships in Indianapolis, Rutherford made Bahamian Track and Field history, becoming the first Bahamian to win an IAAF medal. He won the Bronze with a distance of 17.02m. At the Pan American Games, also in Indianapolis, Rutherford won the Bronze medal with a distance of 16.68m. He failed to qualify for the finals at the World Outdoor Championships in Rome that August, jumping 15.99m. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics Rutherford jumped 15.84m to finish 26th in the qualifying round. Rutherford placed eighth at the World Indoor Championships in Seville in March of 1991 and jumped 16.74m to finish 15th in the qualifying round of the Tokyo Olympic Games. The year 1992 was a special one for Rutherford. He set a new Bahamian National record of 17.41m at a meet in Sao Paulo in May. At the Barcelona Games he jumped 17.36m for third place, becoming the first Bahamian to win a Track and Field medal in the Olympic Games. Shortly after the Games he finished second to Jonathan Edwards in the World Cup in Havana with a 17.06m effort. Rutherford’s performances after this historic was lackluster and sometimes faced with injury, as he was taken off the field in the 1993 Stuttgart World Championships on a stretcher. He was able to show good form at the Atlanta Olympics when he made the final and finished eleventh with a 16.73m performance.
Allen Mortimer
Mortimer followed in the tradition of great Bahamian Triple Jumpers. He held the National Junior record of 16.58m. Mortimer finished sixth in the Triple Jump at the 1996 World Junior Championships in Sydney. In 2000 Mortimer won the NACAC Under-25 Championships in Monterrey, Mexico with a 15.74m jump.
Leevan Sands
Leevan Sands dominated the junior competitions in the Central America and Caribbean region in the late nineties and early years of the new century. In 1999 he finished sixth in the Triple Jump at the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg with a 15.51m jump. At the 2000 Central American and Caribbean Jr. Championships in San Juan, Sands jumped 15.95m (wind aided) to win. Later that year, in Santiago, Chile, at the IAAF World Jr. Championships, Sands jumped 16.22m for fifth place. Leevan, who attended Auburn University, under the guidance of Bahamian Henry Rolle, made a big jump of 17.26m when he won a Bronze medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. In 2003 Sands won the Sr. Central American and Caribbean Championships in Grenada with a 17.16m effort. Prior to the World Championships in Paris that year, Sands defeated World record holder Jonathan Edwards at a meet in London with a 17.41m performance. At the World Championships in Paris, Sands jumped 17.26m for the Bronze. He just missed the Bronze at the 2005 Helsinki World Championships by one centimeter, 17.39m to Romania’s Marian Oprea, 17.40m. By the time Beijing rolled around, Sands was ready for action, winning a Bronze medal with a 17.59m Bahamian National record jump. Sands finished fourth in the Berlin World Championships with a 17.32m jump. His competitions in the last two seasons show that he is ready to get to the level of his former successes. If Sands is able to medal in either the upcoming World Championships in Daegu, or the Olympic Games in London, he would be the odds on favourite to be named the Best Bahamian Triple Jumper ever. The Collie-Minns Twins
As we began this article saying, The Bahamas can be considered a Triple Jump farm. We continue to breed some of the best in the world. The Collie-Minns twins were born on March 10th, 1994. Latario made it to the World Junior Championships in Moncton last year and finished eighth in the qualifying round with a 15.35m performance. Last year Lathone earned a spot on the Americas Youth Olympics team that competed in Singapore. He finished tenth overall with a 14.66m performance. This season Latario jumped 16.55m to win the Scotiabank National High School Championships. This was just 3cm off of Allen Mortimer’s Bahamian National Record. Unfortunately Latario had a freak accident while playing at home a week afterward and could not compete at the Carifta Games. It is hoped that he will be ready for the World Youth Championships in Lille, France, early in July. Lathone jumped 15.73m at the Scotiabank National High School Track and Field Championships. He finished second in this year’s Carifta Games with a 15.24m jump. The twins lead the IAAF Youth lists this year with their 16.55m and 15.73m performances. Their coach is Peter Pratt, the first Bahamian medalist in the Carifta Games. The future looks great for The Bahamas to continue its Great Triple Jump tradition. After all, what more can we expect from The Bahamas, Small Country, Great Athletes.
The Bahamas’ Great Triple Jump Tradition ( Part 1 )
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