KINGSTON, Jamaica — One of Jamaica’s brightest track and field talents, 2025 national 110m hurdles champion Orlando Bennett, has confirmed he will almost certainly miss the upcoming 2025 Commonwealth Games scheduled to kick off later this month. The athlete’s withdrawal stems from his deliberate decision to skip the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association’s national qualifying championships, set to run from June 18 to 21, a mandatory step for selection to the national Commonwealth Games team.
Bennett, who recently competed in a surprise second-place finish in the men’s triple jump event on Thursday, opened up about his competition schedule in the coming weeks. Fresh off a warm-up stop, he is gearing up to test his speed and technique against a deep, high-quality field at next Thursday’s Golden Gala Pietro Mennea in Rome — the fourth leg of the prestigious 2025 Wanda Diamond League tour. Immediately after the Rome meet, Bennett revealed his next competitive stop will not be the Jamaican national championships, but instead the Diamond League event hosted in Doha on June 19, the same date as one of the key qualifying rounds for the Commonwealth Games.
A veteran finalist at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, Bennett laid out his strategic priorities for the 2025 athletic season in an interview with local media. “Next meeting will be Doha and then I go home to Jamaica and rest a bit. This is an off-season for me so my goals are staying in the circuit and getting good times and good rewards,” he explained, framing his choice to skip the Commonwealth Games as a long-term strategic play to maintain his position on the global Diamond League circuit rather than peak for a single multi-sport event this year.
The Jamaican hurdler, who already claimed a career-defining silver medal at the 2025 World Athletics Championships held in Tokyo, Japan, also shared his candid assessment of his recent triple jump outing, which he called far from his best performance. “I do not know if this was a good race, it was not really the best. I just tried to get through the race and through the hurdles. Maybe it was because of the low temperatures. It was also a back-to-back race. I came here to execute and I really did,” he said, noting that unseasonably cool conditions and a packed competition schedule contributed to his underwhelming showing in the surprise multi-event outing.
Bennett first burst onto the senior Jamaican track scene last year, when he claimed his first national senior title in the 110m hurdles, outperforming top competitors Demario Prince and Tyler Mason to secure his spot as one of the country’s most promising rising hurdles talents.