Alia Armstrong

Distin of Texas A&M and Smith of Texas are joined by three other athletes - the LSU pair of Alia Armstrong and Michaela Rose, as well as Roisin Willis of Stanford –who have been on the list at least once before, while the rest of the Women’s Preseason Watch List is completed by five first timers.

Addy Wiley of Huntington (Ind) is the first athlete – male or female – from an NAIA institution to be included on a Watch List for The Bowerman, and she is joined by other debutants Axelina Johansson of Nebraska, Olivia Markezich of Notre Dame, Stephanie Ratcliffe of Georgia and Parker Valby of Florida.

Distin, a prolific high jumper who hails from Hanover, has won three NCAA DI high jump titles – twice indoors in 2022 and 2023, and once outdoors in 2022. She has cleared 1.97m (6-5½) both indoors and outdoors, which has ranked her number three all-time indoors and number four all-time outdoors.

The 23-year-old's accolades also includes additional clearances at 1.96m (6-5) outdoors once for a share at the number six all-time performance, plus three times indoors, all equal to number 10 all-time indoor performance. This is the Commonwealth Games gold medallist's seventh career Watch List appearance.

Meanwhile, Smith, a long and triple jump specialist, who hails from Clarendon, won the 2023 NCAA DI Outdoor long jump title with the number two collegiate performance all-time at 7.08m (23-2¾). She registered another memorable performance in the same meet, when she placed second in the triple jump at 14.54m (47-8 ½), which positioned her at number two on the all-time collegiate list.

Indoors, the 21-year-old was second in the long jump and third in the triple jump at the NCAA Championships, and those performances moved her to number six and number five collegiately all-time, respectively. This is her third career Watch List appearance.

The next Watch List will be released on Wednesday, February 7.

The Bowerman 2024 will be awarded in December at the USTFCCCA Convention in Orlando, Florida.

Anderson, who won her first Jamaican national title in June, was first up and comfortably advanced to the semi-finals with 12.60 to win heat one.

There was also a major casualty in the first heat as defending world champion Nia Ali of the USA failed to advance after clipping the ninth hurdle and falling to the track.

Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico was next up, running 12.52 to win heat two ahead of Bahamian world indoor silver medallist Devynne Charlton (12.69).

Jamaican 2015 world champion Danielle Williams finished second in heat three with 12.87 to advance. Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan cruised to a new national record 12.40 to win the heat.

Costa Rica’s Andrea Carolina Vargas ran 13.12 for third in heat four to advance.

Tapper, bronze medallist at the Olympics last year, ran 12.73 to finish second behind American Alia Armstrong (12.48) in heat five and progress.

World leader and world record holder Kendra Harrison of the USA ran 12.60 to win heat six and advance.