Tyra Gittens believes things are falling into place for another great performance in the heptathlon at this weekend’s SEC Championships. Her confidence would have been further buoyed by encouraging performances at the Aggie Invitational at Bryan-College Station in Texas on Saturday.
The 22-year-old Trinidadian, a redshirt junior at Texas A&M, easily won the high jump with a clearance at 1.84m. That clearance was 13cm better than the 1.71m cleared by Gittens’ A&M teammate Allyson Andres, who finished in second place. Parl Eelma, a Lamar sophomore cleared 1.66m for third.
Gittens told Sportsmax.TV afterwards that the effort was in line with what she has been working on in training. “In the high jump my coach wanted me to take three jumps and then call it a day and that’s what I did,” she said.
She was even more upbeat about the shot put because even though she was no match for Sam Houston freshman KeAyla Dove, who put a distance of 15.34m, Gittens still managed a season-best 13.58m for second place.
“In the shot put things are starting to click and I am very excited about SEC’s this week,” she said.
Among Gittens’ immediate targets this weekend is the Olympic qualifying standard of 6420 points. That’s only 146 points more than the personal best 6274 points she scored on April 10 in Texas.