CHARLOTTESVILLE, U.S. — Jamaican track and field star Nayoka Clunis has etched her name deeper into the country’s athletics record books, breaking her own women’s hammer throw national record to claim gold at the Virginia Challenge on Friday. Clunis delivered a winning throw of 72.03 meters, outperforming her prior national best mark of 71.83 meters set just one month prior in Arizona this 2025 outdoor season. Impressively, the Jamaican qualifier notched three separate throws that cleared the 70-meter barrier on the day, putting her inside the world’s top 20 rankings early in the outdoor competitive calendar. Beyond Clunis’ standout performance, a host of other Jamaican athletes competing at U.S. collegiate track and field meets across the country turned in career-best results over the same competition Friday.
At the University of Florida’s Tom Jones Memorial, Purdue University’s Britannia Johnson surged to a fifth-place finish in the women’s hammer throw with a new personal best of 56.49 meters, beating her previous top mark of 55.64 meters. Her twin sister Britannie Johnson also competed, notching a throw of 52.39 meters. Clemson University’s Brandon Pottinger took top honors in the men’s high jump competition at the meet, clearing 2.12 meters to claim the win.
At the same time, University of Texas sprinter Carleta Bernard clocked a wind-aided 22.68 seconds in the invitational women’s 200-meter race, with wind speeds registering at 2.9 meters per second, above the allowable threshold for official records. Her teammate Abigail Wolfe posted a valid 23.38 seconds with a 0.7 meters per second wind in the same event.
Over at the Bill Schmidt Invitational, Fabrienne Foster of the University of North Texas secured second place in the women’s hammer throw while breaking her own personal best by a wide margin. Foster threw 54.82 meters, beating the 51.84-meter personal best she set just one weekend earlier at a meet hosted by Texas A&M University. She surpassed her old career best three separate times during Friday’s competition.
Alliyah McNeil turned in a strong all-around performance at the meet, taking gold in the women’s high jump with a clearance of 1.81 meters, followed by a silver medal finish in the women’s long jump with a 5.86-meter effort recorded in neutral wind conditions. Trezeguet Taylor claimed the women’s 200-meter title with a wind-aided 23.82 seconds (3.3 meters per second), while Tahj Hamm placed fourth in the men’s 200-meter with a 21.19-second clocking, also wind-aided at 2.8 meters per second.
At the Aggie Invitational hosted by North Carolina A&T University, Shakiel Dacres of East Carolina University took the top spot on the men’s discus throw podium with a 52.39-meter winning effort. Rounding out the week’s results for Jamaican athletes, Obrian Bowen of Umpqua Community College won the men’s triple jump at the Raider Invitational, hosted by Southern Oregon University, with a season-best leap of 14.02 meters.
The photo accompanying this report captures Clunis reacting to her performance at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan, taken by photojournalist Garfield Robinson on September 14, 2025.