### A Historic Weekend for Saint Lucian Track and Field: Records Tumble and Titles Pile Up
The small Caribbean nation of Saint Lucia is celebrating a watershed moment for its athletics program, after a single weekend of elite collegiate competition across the United States delivered an unprecedented haul of achievements: three new senior national records, two fresh junior national marks, three school records, and three conference championship titles.
The standout performance came at the close of the North American collegiate outdoor season, where Saint Lucian competitors turned both the National Junior College Championships and NCAA Division I conference title meets into stages for record-breaking success. Headlining the group was Lauralyn Clifford, a graduate transfer competing for the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Roadrunners, who extended her incredible 2024 form by rewriting the Saint Lucian women’s hammer throw record for the fourth time this season.
Competing at Norma Knobel Hunt Stadium in Denton, Texas, at the American Outdoor Conference Championships, Clifford launched the hammer 60.72 meters to claim the conference title. The mark not only broke her own previous national record, but also established a new UTSA school record, and met the entry standard for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. During the championship series, Clifford recorded three of the longest throws of her professional career, hitting the 60-meter barrier three separate times – a milestone she had spent years working toward.
“It’s been the best season of my career at UTSA,” Clifford told reporters after her win. “Every new record gives me more confidence and reminds me that I haven’t hit my ceiling yet. This progress doesn’t happen by accident, it’s the result of all the early mornings and extra reps, and it just pushes me to keep getting better. Breaking 60 meters three times in one weekend was surreal, and it’s got me really excited for what’s coming next.”
Freshman Jasmine Stiede of Wichita State University pulled off one of the weekend’s biggest upsets in the women’s 800-meter run. After clocking 2:09.48 in the preliminary round – the seventh-fastest 800m in Wichita State history, a time that would have won silver at the 2026 CARIFTA Games – Stiede went on to win the conference final in 2:13.89. The time broke the 28-year-old Saint Lucian junior national record previously held by Augustina Charles, who ran 2:15.10 hand-timed back in 1996. For her dominant debut season, Stiede was also named American Conference Freshman of the Year.
In the men’s 110-meter hurdles, Clemson University’s Khailan Vitalis – a seasoned national record holder – once again shaved time off his own senior national mark. Competing at the Atlantic Coast Conference Outdoor Championships in Louisville, Kentucky, at Owsley B. Frazier Cardinal Park, Vitalis first broke his own record in preliminaries, running 13.64 seconds to hit the sub-13.70 mark for the first time in his career. In the final, held after a lengthy weather delay on a rain-soaked track, Vitalis ran 13.59 seconds to finish fifth overall, earning a spot in the all-time top 10 for Clemson University men’s hurdles with his updated national record.
The third new senior national record of the weekend came from 19-year-old Denzel Phillips, a rising star at Jamaica College. Competing at the PUMA Meet #2 in Kingston, Phillips became the new Saint Lucian senior men’s shot put champion, throwing the 16lb shot 15.63m to take second place and break Akeem Herbert’s 22-year-old record of 14.57m. The result adds the outdoor shot put record to Phillips’ growing collection of national throwing titles, following on from his multiple medal wins at previous CARIFTA Games.
At the National Junior College Championships hosted in Hobbs, New Mexico, Garden City Community College sophomore Naya Jules turned in an elite all-around performance to earn double All-American honors. Jules broke her own national junior record in the women’s heptathlon, scoring 4559 points over two days of competition to finish fourth overall – a score that would have secured silver at last month’s CARIFTA Games. The performance also set a new Garden City school record, on top of a second school record she set in the javelin, where she threw 44.73m to finish fourth. Jules also added an 11th-place finish in the pole vault to her weekend results.
Rounding out the impressive haul, Jenneil Jacobie claimed her second consecutive Southland Conference high jump title, clearing 1.76m to take gold, while Michael Joseph finished sixth overall in the men’s 400-meter run at the Big 12 Outdoor Championship to cap off a historic weekend for Saint Lucian track and field.
The unprecedented wave of records caps what has already been a breakout year for Saint Lucian athletics, with young athletes continuing to post career-best and national-best results at the highest levels of collegiate competition across North America.