Dominican triple jumper Thea Lafond sets another national record and world lead result

National Triple jumper, Thea Lafond, has once again rewritten the record books by not only setting a new Dominica national record but also a world lead result.

She jumped 14.62 meters to secure 1st place at the recently held Dr. Martin Luther King Collegiate Invitational at the Albuquerque Convention Center located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, setting a new mark in the United States, and the best mark by any triple jumper in the world for 2022.

According to the Dominica Olympic Committee (DOC), despite this phenomenal achievement, Lafond said “I didn’t like the 14.62m jump. I see many places to improve and that is what I plan to do. It is going to be a packed year with 2 World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and NACAC Championships. I plan to make an impact at them all.”

This isn’t the only time that the young athlete has placed Dominica in the limelight with her outstanding ability.

In 2021, the Commonwealth triple jump bronze medalist who hails from the community of Mahaut, but is currently based in the United States of America, unleashed the jump of her life (14.52m) and in the process smashed her outright national record and logged the best jump, globally, for the year.

Months later at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, as the first female Dominican athlete to compete in two consecutive Olympic Games, Lafond set another new national record and personal best with a leap of 14.60 meters.

In 2019, she set the Organization of the Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) outdoor record of 14.38m, before sustaining a season-ending injury. Getting back to the track, in February of 2020, she surpassed the Olympic standard by a centimetre and became the first woman from the OECS to make the Tokyo 2020 standard.

Despite her many successes, there has been sadness, one, in particular, was her performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Struggling for confidence in the biggest competition of her life, LaFond placed 37th and last with a modest best of 12.82m.

But as the saying goes, you win some, you lose some. Undetermined and with a new strategy and coach in 2017, she set two national records highlighted by a 14.20m leap at the Penn Relays. The following year, she went even further and made history by becoming the first athlete from Dominica to win a Commonwealth Games medal, followed by her noteworthy accomplishments in 2019 and 2020.