Spotlight on Jamaican triple jumper Jaydon Hibbert for Rising Star Award

Faith Cherotich and Jaydon Hibbert, right.
Faith Cherotich and Jaydon Hibbert, right.
World Athletics

As the countdown to the World Athletics Awards 2022 continues, World Athletics has shone the spotlight on Jamaican triple jumper Jaydon Hibbert for the Rising Star Awards.
World Athletics said on Tuesday that Hibbert went the entire 2022 season undefeated in his specialist event.
His season started in January, and his first PB of the year came just two weeks later in mid-February as he jumped 16.10m, World Athletics said.
It said he broke it again in March (16.56m) and April (16.66m).
Later in April, World Athletics said Hibbert won the CARIFTA Games title with a wind-assisted 17.05m – his first leap beyond the 17-metre barrier.
He then went on to win at the Penn Relays in what was his first competition outside Kingston, the Jamaican capital, in 2022, World Athletic said.
It said Hibbert returned to Kingston for his country’s senior National Championships in late June.
Competing against athletes eight years his senior, Hibbert won with 16.41m, World Athletics said.
“His big goal of the year, though, was the World Athletics U20 Championships Cali 22, where he was determined to upgrade the silver medal he won at the 2021 edition,” it said.
“He effectively ended the competition with his opening leap as he bounded out to a lifetime best of 17.27m,” it added.
“He followed it with an effort of 16.82m, the second-best jump of his life, and then he passed his four remaining attempts, safe in the knowledge that he had done enough to win,” World Athletics continued. “No one else in the field got within a meter of Hibbert’s winning mark.
Not only did he break the championship record, his leap moved Hibbert to equal eighth on the world U20 all-time list and second on the world U18 all-time list, World Athletics said.
“And the 17-year-old Hibbert will still be young enough to compete at the 2024 World U20 Championships, where he could become the first man to win back-to-back world U20 titles in the triple jump,” it said.
The winners of the Rising Star Awards will be selected by an international panel of experts and be announced on World Athletics’ social media platforms in early December.