‘Hibbert won’t be starstruck in Budapest’

World leading triple jumper Jaydon Hibbert won’t be starstruck when he meets the world’s best for the first time. That’s the projection from Jeremy Delisser who taught Hibbert to triple jump at Kingston College. Delisser reckons that the NCAA champion will be excited to compete against the likes of Pablo Pedro Pichardo at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest this August.

Hibbert has made a brilliant start to life at the University of Arkansas, winning the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor titles and posting world under 20 records of 17.54 and 17.87 metres indoors and outdoors, respectively. However, he hasn’t jumped against Portuguese star Pichardo, Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso and China’s Zhu Zaming who took the gold, silver and bronze medals, respectively, at last year’s World Championships.

“Clearly, it will be a little surreal to say that, a few years ago, he used to watch them on TV and used to probably look at them and see what I can try to learn from them and so on,” Delisser said last Saturday. “He’ll definitely have that moment, but I think it will be excitement on his part to say, ‘hey, I’m here, I’m with these guys. I get to compete against them. I’m going to see what I can do’ which is, to me, the right way to look at it”, the coach said.

“If you know his personality, he’ll be more excited than anything else,” said the man who coached Hibbert to a World Under-20 title last year.

A successful season

Delisser feels good about Hibbert’s prospects for the rest of 2023.

“The season was a good season, a very successful season, definitely for his first year out at the next level so I’m sure he’s happy. I’m happy. You always look for progress, you always look for success and to remain healthy, He was growing this year, so it was good to see him and then able to manage him where he was still able to compete, still be successful, still improve but minimise the amount of jumping overall,” he said.

Coached now by Travis Geopfert at the University of Arkansas, the 18-year-old Hibbert has only competed in seven meets, and only once, at the Carifta Games, has he used the full complement of jumps. “It’s not a lot left in the season in terms of jumps, the amount of meets. You have the National Trials and of course the rounds at World Champs. So definitely, he should have some fuel left in the tank,” Delisser estimated.

In total, the lanky triple jumper has only used 17 of the 46 attempts available to him this season.

The four-day National Championships are set for Kingston, starting on July 6 and with no other Jamaican near to the World Championships qualifying standard of 17.20 metres, Hibbert is likely to face Pichardo and company in Budapest.