Traves Smikle setting a new standard at home

On February 5 at the Youngster/Goldsmith meet held at the University of the West Indies Traves Smikle unleashed a throw of 63.96 metres to break the national junior discus record his former Calabar teammate Chad Wright had set at the CARIFTA Games in the Cayman Islands in early April last year. It was a record to mark the start of a season that would end with yet another record – the Junior Pan Am record of 66.51m on Friday.

The frightening thing about Friday night’s performance in Miramar, Florida, is that Smikle was not even at his best. According to his coach Julian Robinson, who has over the past few years developed four of Jamaica’s best ever young throwers, Traves was not on form technically. Based on the fact that he is much stronger now than he was when he hurled 66.88 metres to set a new national junior record at Boys and Girls Champs this year, Robinson feels his young charge should have been closer to the world junior record of 70 metres; a lot closer.

Never before has a Jamaican junior thrower been this successful. His 66.88m-throw at champs was one of the best ever, so was the winning throw on Friday night. Smikle, his teammate Frederick Dacres, the World Youth Champion, with one of the best youth throws of all time 67.05; Ashinia Miller and Chad Wright are now the standard bearers for future throwers in Jamaica, but it is Smikle who leads the way. He was the first ever thrower to win a medal at a global championships regardless of age group when he won bronze at the IAAF World Youth Championships in 2009. It was he who made the breakthrough for his teammate Dacres who became the first ever gold medallist at the WYC this year. Together they have blazed a trail for others to follow.

Smikle has been so outstanding this season, he even won the National Senior Championships at the end of June with a throw of more than 59 metres with the 2kg discuss. At the youth level throwers use a 1.5kg disc, junior 1.75kg, so he taking on and defeating Jamaica’s senior thrower record holder Jason Morgan was an impressive performance. Morgan’s national record is a very decent 64.11m. Smikle’s throw of 59.83m to Morgan’s 58.71 demonstrates to a point that Smikle is clearly ready to challenge new boundaries at the senior level.

In the coming years he will need to continue to push the boundaries if he is to realize his full potential as a possible world beater. The greater challenge is for him to remain focused because without it he will fade away. He will need to be able to get that disc out to 67 metres and beyond if he is to be considered a medal contender at the senior level but with what we have seen from his to date, it wont be that long before he starts turning heads at the senior level on the world stage.