Trinidad and Tobago Olympian Tyra Gittens has gone professional.
The 24-year-old Gittens announced on Instagram on Monday that has signed with Puma.
“Turning dreams into reality. I am proud to announce that I’m a new member of team Puma,” she said.
“The transition into my professional career was not smooth or easy but I have amazing people in my corner who rooted for me when I didn’t feel worthy of it. So excited to start this new chapter of my life.”
Gittens was an outstanding athlete while at Texas A&M University where she excelled at the heptathlon, high jump and long jump events.
In 2021 at SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships, she jumped 6.96m to place her inside the top 10 for the year so far and set Trinidad and Tobago records in Heptathlon 6418 points, high jump 1.95 m and long jump 6.96 m.
However, those 6418 points where just two points shy of the Olympic standard and caused her to miss 2020 Tokyo Olympics in that event.
However, she did qualify for the Olympics where she jumped 6.60m to finish 10th overall.
She struggled for form in 2022, when she jumped 6.27m for 11th place at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England. She was also well below her best in the high jump clearing 1.76m for 14th place in the high jump.
At the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon that year she only managed 6.44m for 19th place in the long jump.
She was fourth at the NACAC Senior Championships with her best effort of 6.25m.
Later that year, Gittens transferred from Texas A&M to University of Texas citing a need to shift her focus from the heptathlon to the long and high jump events.
“I don’t feel like I outgrew it because I still have a lot of things that I wanted to do in the hep and accomplish in the hep. But at the same time, you kind of have to feel your body. It’s a lot to do the hep, I’m not going to lie, and so I wanted to challenge myself in other ways,” said Gittens in a media interview in 2022.
Now, armed with her Puma contract, Gittens can now turn her focus to the Paris Olympics in 2024.
“My goals are not something you necessarily can write down. It’s more of a feeling and how I carry myself and how I adapt and how I push through all of the things that has led me here. I think that’s what my goal is for this year — to overcome a lot of things that the younger Tyra wouldn’t have been able to,” she said.