Kelsey Daniel cap­tured gold at the Na­tion­al Col­le­giate Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (NCAA) Di­vi­sion I In­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships when he he won the men's long jump ti­tle at Vir­ginia Beach, Vir­ginia in the Unit­ed States on Fri­day (March 14).

The Texas Uni­ver­si­ty fi­nal-year stu­dent land­ed the crown with a fifth-round ef­fort of 8.16 me­tres, a na­tion­al record. The Kaizen Pan­thers club mem­ber dom­i­nat­ed the field tak­ing the lead with his sec­ond-round mark of 7.97m. He then im­proved to 8.11m on his fourth leap to im­prove on the pre­vi­ous na­tion­al record of 8.03m set in his win at the Arkansas In­vi­ta­tion­al on Jan­u­ary 17. The Par­letu­vi­er res­i­dent then ex­tend­ed his na­tion­al mark to 8.16m in the next round to se­cure the ti­tle. Ok­la­homa's Nickaoli Williams was sec­ond (7.96) with Hen­ry Kinere of Arkansas (7.91) in third.

Daniel's NCAA tri­umph adds to his Na­tion­al Ju­nior Col­le­giate Ath­let­ics As­so­ci­a­tion (NJ­CAA) suc­cess in 2023 when he cap­tured the triple jump ho­n­ours whilst a stu­dent at New Mex­i­co Ju­nior Col­lege. The 2011 Ju­nior (Un­der-21) Pan Amer­i­can Games sil­ver medal­list was eighth in the long jump (7.51) and 11th in the triple jump (15.55) at the South East­ern Con­fer­ence (SEC) Cham­pi­onships at the end of Feb­ru­ary.

At the 2024 NCAA DI In­door Cham­pi­onships, he was eighth in the triple jump with 16.00m.

Na­tion­al men's in­door shot put and out­door dis­cus record-hold­er Christo­pher Craw­ford of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­aba­ma and Paris Olympic semi­fi­nal­ist Ohio State's Leah Bertrand (Sim­plex) were al­so in ac­tion at Vir­ginia Beach on the week­end.

Craw­ford, al­so of Kaizen Pan­thers, was 10th in the men's shot put fi­nals with a mark of 19.04m. The Pen­te­costal Light and Life Foun­da­tion grad­u­ate was shy of his na­tion­al mark of 19.41m achieved in Al­bu­querque, New Mex­i­co on Feb­ru­ary 1.

Bertrand was 13th in the women's 60m pre­lim­i­nar­ies. The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion Sports Per­son­al­i­ty for 2024 was sixth in heat one and missed out on the fi­nal by 0.09 sec­onds. The reign­ing na­tion­al women's 100m cham­pi­on es­tab­lished a per­son­al best of 7.19 on March 1.

T&T ath­letes re­sults

Men's

Long jump: 1st Kelsey Daniel (Texas, Kaisen Pan­thers), 8.16 (x, 7.97, 7.83, 8.11, 8.16, -)

Shot put: 10th Christo­pher Craw­ford (Al­aba­ma/Kaizen Pan­thers) 19.04

Women's

60m Pre­lims: 13th (6h1) Leah Bertrand (Ohio State/Sim­plex) 7.27