Athletics: Tia Rozario breaks national indoor triple jump record
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Singaporean Tia Louise Rozario at the 16th Yale Giegengack Invitational meet at Yale University. She won with a leap of 12.67m.
PHOTO: KATE JOYCE
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SINGAPORE – Three months before the 2023 SEA Games, Singaporean Tia Louise Rozario received a confidence boost in her attempt to qualify for the biennial event as she rewrote her own indoor triple jump national record.
Rozario, 22, won the 16th Yale Giegengack Invitational at Yale University last Sunday with her 12.67m attempt, which was followed by Princeton University teammate Alexandra Kelly (12.57m) and Brown University’s Lauren Yeboah-Kodie (12.54m).
Rozario had a total of six jumps and was happy with her flying start. She leapt 12.57m on her first attempt, 3cm further than her previous best.
She fouled the second and third jump but, by the fourth, everything had fallen into place.
“Going into the fourth jump, I didn’t really have anything to lose,” said Rozario, in a telephone interview from New Jersey.
“There was no more pressure... and I was able to execute my technique really well.”
She cleared 12.67m, well over the 12.54m she had set at the February 2022 Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track & Field Championships. Rozario also holds the outdoor national record of 12.54m.
During the 2022 Ivy League Outdoor Track & Field Championships in May, she leapt 12.74m but it was not registered as a record due to the assisting wind (+3.6m/sec) being too strong.
The qualifying distance for the May 5-17 SEA Games in Cambodia is 13.45m – the bronze medal mark from the previous Games – but Rozario is not discouraged by the gulf in standards.
Rozario, who is currently in her senior year studying neuroscience at Princeton, said her immediate goal is to record a new personal best at the 2023 Ivy League Indoor Track & Field Championships on Feb 25-26 at Dartmouth College.
“The ultimate goal for this year would just be to hit 13 metres,” she said.
“That’s going to be a big milestone and it’s definitely possible this year. I feel like when I focus on getting a good distance, then the results will follow.”
