Tyrone Smith made the most of his final attempt of the afternoon Friday, using a seasonal-best jump of 7.97 meters (26 feet, 1¾ inches) to qualify for the finals in the long jump at the Summer Olympics.
Smith, a 2007 Missouri S&T graduate who is representing his native country of Bermuda at the Olympics, hit his mark on the last of his three qualification jumps to finish in 10th place among the 40 competitors in the preliminaries. Only the top 12 finishers on Friday advanced to the finals, which will take place Saturday at 1:55 p.m., Central time, at the Olympic Stadium.
On his first jump of the day, Smith posted a mark of 7.73 meters (25-4½), then recorded a slightly better jump of 7.75 meters (25-5¼) in the second round. On his last jump – competitors are given only three jumps in the preliminaries – he posted his mark of 7.97 into a slight headwind to vault into eighth place at the time.
Two jumpers that followed Smith passed his mark on their final attempts, but Smith was able to hang onto the 10th place position to earn the opportunity to jump again on Saturday. Smith is guaranteed a higher finish at this Olympic competition after finishing 15th in the event at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
The top marks in the preliminaries came from Brazil’s Maura Vinicius Da Silva and Marquise Goodwin from the United States, as each had a jump of 8.11 meters or 26-7¼. The last qualifier was Germany’s Sebastian Bayer, who had a top mark of 7.92 meters (26 feet) and a second-best jump of 7.88 meters (25-10¼) to break a tie with fellow countryman Christian Reif.