Kaputin remains hopeful

PAPUA New Guinea jumps record holder and Tokyo Olympic Games hopeful Rellie Kaputin was in action at the Australian National Championships in Sydney last weekend.
A season’s best jump of 6.25m in Friday’s qualifying round, which ranked her third in a field of 16 athletes, raised hopes of a bigger jump in Sunday’s final, especially since her foot was well behind the board on take-off for that jump.
However, despite jumping in excess of six metres on all six attempts for the second time in her career, Kaputin was not able to improve her season’s best and again recorded a best effort of 6.25m.
Whilst things didn’t go as planned, this is still a huge performance coming back from a foot injury that towards the end of 2019 seemed to have derailed her Olympic hopes.
“I’m prepared to pour all my heart and soul into this in the two months remaining and get some big jumps in the Oceania competitions in June” Kaputin said.
“I’m confident of jumping over 6.5m.
She said she was running and jumping well, and she just needed to put it together on the day to come home.
Based on the World Athletics Road to Tokyo ranking, Kaputin is ranked 53rd and her aim is to still be in the top-60 by the end of the qualifying period.
Meanwhile, national sprint champion Toea Wisil is planning to leave PNG this week for the United States where she will take part in a number of competitions in an aim to boost her own world ranking and earn selection for the one spot that is available to PNG under the universality rule.