NATIONAL champions in their respective fields, Jasmine Abrams and Emanuel Archibald, will join the country’s Tokyo Olympics-bound athletes at the 32nd Olympiad. They were named by World Athletics yesterday among the world’s other competitors for the July 23–August 8 event in Japan.
While both athletes failed to meet the required qualification standard in their disciplines, World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee’s Universality spots and World Rankings came into effect. Archibald, Guyana’s National record-holder in the men’s long jump (8.12 metres) will now line-up against 2016 Olympic Games gold medallist Jeff Henderson, after his current World Ranking (47) was enough to land him amongst the 63 competitors listed for the event in Japan.
Mark Mason’s long jump record of 8.07 metres, which he had set in April of 1993, was broken by Archibald on March 7, 2019, at a meet in Jamaica, after the now Malta Carib athlete had leaped 8.07. Showing that his feat was no fluke, Archibald at the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) All Comers Meet 1 on May 11, 2019, reset the National long jump record to 8.12 metres.

The Linden athlete had opened his season this year by posting an impressive 8.10 metres at the National Track and Field Centre. At the time it was a world-leading distance in the long jump.
Archibald has represented Guyana at the World Championships and Commonwealth Games, chalking up an impressive resumé in Jamaica where he’s based as part of the Ricketts Performance Centre under coach Kerry-Lee Ricketts. Meanwhile, Archibald’s Olympic 100m dream also came true when he picked up the Universality Placing for selection to line up against the likes of USA’s Trayvon Bromell and Jamaica’s Yohan Blake. Archibald’s Personal Best in the distance is 10.22 seconds, set in 2018 in Kingston, Jamaica, though he did clock a wind-assisted 10.18 seconds to win Guyana’s senior Men’s 100 metres at the Athletics Association of Guyana’s (AAG) National Championships last month.
He also won silver for Guyana (10.23 seconds) at this year’s South American Senior Championships in Santiago de Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Archibald will join Mark Mason (long jump 1992), Onan Thom (swimming 2004), Marian Burnett (800m, 2004 and 2008) and Desmond Hector (800m 1992) as the athletes from Linden who have represented Guyana at the Olympic Games.

ABRAMS SISTERS CREATE HISTORY
Meanwhile, in what can be the very first time in the country’s history where siblings competing at the same Olympic Games, Aliyah Abrams dreams of sharing the Olympic stage with her sister Jasmine. Aliyah Abrams (400 metres) will be competing in her second Olympic Games, having competed at the 2016 Games in Rio Brazil. In fact, Aliyah is the first Guyanese to qualify for the Olympic Games, doing so in 2019. Speaking to Chronicle Sport while here to compete at the AAG’s National Championship, Aliyah said she was hoping to share the world’s biggest sports stage with her sister. Yesterday, World Athletics announced that Jasmine will get a chance to face-off with some of the fastest women over the distance of 100 metres in Tokyo, after her World Ranking (86) was good enough for her to punch her ticket to the games. Jasmine won bronze for Guyana at the Senior South American Championship recently.
She ran a Personal Best this year, clocking 11.19 seconds. Chelsea Edghill (table tennis), Keevin Allicock (boxing), and Andrew Fowler (swimming) are the other athletes who will suit-up for Guyana in Japan. The Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) is yet to officially announce who will be Guyana’s female swimmer at the games, since the decision to select either Aleka Persaud or Jamila Sanmoogan is pending.