Photo: National triple jump champion Kimberly Williams has her eyes set on a medal at the World Championships in Beijing, China.
In 2005 former National triple Jumper and national record holder, Trecia-Kaye Smith, created history by copping the Helsinki World Championships title with a near personal best effort, bringing pride and joy to Jamaicans at home and in the diaspora. In the process she became the first and only Jamaican female athlete to have won gold at the World Championship level in that event.
Fast forward to the 2015 and with days to the beginning of 15th edition of the IAAF World Championships, the six times World Championship representative, has now hung up her spikes and the baton passed to current triple jump princess Kimberly Williams.
The former Vere Technical High School student, who represented Jamaica at the world junior level made her senior World Championship debut at the Berlin Games in 2009. She also represented at the 13th IAAF World Championships in Daegu. On both occasion Williams failed to qualify for the finals.
Third time out, proved a better championship for her as she narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth in the finals in Moscow, Russia.
Having tasted international success at the IAAF World Indoor Championship in Sopot, Poland, in March 2014, then crowning herself golden at the Commonwealth Games in late July 2014, Williams, is selected to represent her country once again and she will be keen on ending the decade long wait for another medal in the horizontal jumps for Jamaica.
With a season best of 14.34m and sitting eighth among the top jumpers, Williams will have to cut the sand at a mark further and right at close to her personal best of 14.62m, if she hopes to stand on the podium in Beijing.
Many pundits have given the gold medal to the dominant Columbian triple jumper, and defending world champion Caterine Ibarguen who has been unbeaten thus far this year, but Williams will also have to overcome world leader and silver medalist Ekaterina Koneva of Russia if she is to snatch gold.
2011 World Champion Ukraine’s Olha Saladuha, Hanna Knyazyeva-Minenko, who competes for Israel, Gabriela Petrova of Bulgaria, and Kazakhstan athlete Olga Rypakova are expected to be the main challengers for medal when the games gets going.
The country is privileged to have another female going in the triple jump event at the World Championships after Shanieka Thomas secured the top spot at the NACAC Championship 2015, which grants a wild card entry to her first World Championships.
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