As the Louisiana State University (LSU) Tigers look to begin the national championship race again this spring, several of its top athletes are returning to the squad to add the depth and talent needed to compete at the high-level NCAAs.
Among those returning are Caribbean stars Damar Forbes, Kyron Blaise and Riker Hylton, who will add the firepower and talent LSU believes will help take the Tigers to the zenith of college track and field this year.
After qualifying for the national final in the long jump at the 2011 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, Tiger standout Damar Forbes leaped into the record book as he shattered his own personal best to join the 27-ft club by leaping 27-ft even, in Des Moines, Iowa. The performance earned Forbes his first career All-America accolade as the sophomore finished as the NCAA Outdoor runner-up.
Damar Forbes
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Kyron Blaise
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Riker Hylton
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Forbes became the first Tiger since John Moffitt in 2004 to eclipse the 27-ft mark in the long jump with the No. 3-ranked mark on LSU’s all-time outdoor performance list in the event. He then jumped 25’-7½” to take the silver medal for Jamaica in the long jump at the July 2011 Central American & Caribbean Championships held in Puerto Rico.
But Forbes did not stop there; later he made his debut at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, while competing for Jamaica and finishing in 20th place overall in the event.
Born in St. Ann, Jamaica, Forbes moved to the US at the age of 7. He will compete this spring as a national championship contender in the long jump.
Joining Forbes as a lateral jumper is Kyron Blaise of Trinidad & Tobago. In his first season with the Tigers in 2011, Blaise was an NCAA Championships qualifier in both the long and triple jumps.
In 2011, he finished ninth in the triple
jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships
as a junior. He later added a 12th-place finish in the long jump indoors before competing for LSU in the triple jump at the NCAA Outdoor Championships to wrap up the collegiate season. Blaise posted a lifetime PR of 53’-8¼” in the triple jump during his first season with the program a season ago.
He also won the triple jump title at the New Balance Collegiate Invite with an NCAA qualifying mark of 53’-2¼” and set an indoor personal best in the long jump with a distance of 25’-6¼” at the LSU Indoor Qualifier. Prior to that, Blaise established himself as the nation's top jumper in the junior college ranks during his career at South Plains College, where he earned five All-America honors while competing in the National Junior College Athletics Association.
Hylton, a senior standout, emerged among the top Caribbean 400m runners last year, when he followed up the collegiate season by winning the Jamaican title for the event, setting a lifetime personal best (PB) of 45.30secs in the 400m final at the 2011 Jamaican National Senior Championships in Kingston. That improbable race to the finish earned Hylton a trip to Daegu to compete at the World Championships for the first time. There, he ran the formidable second leg to help Jamaica to a bronze medal in the 4x4 relay.
An NCAA Championships qualifier in the 400m, both indoors and outdoors in 2011, Hylton is the No. 4-ranked returning quarter-miler this season and is a strong All-America candidate in the event this spring.
He will be joined by seniors Ade Alleyne-Forte and Robert Simmons, and junior Caleb Williams to form one of the NCAA’s deepest stables of 400m runners.
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Photos Courtesy of LSU