Defending national high jump champion Lamara Distin has set her sights on achieving a lifetime best at this year’s national championships, which begins today at the National Stadium.

Distin, who holds a personal best and national record mark of 2.00m, is highly favoured to successfully defend her national title in the event, scheduled to commence at 7:10 pm.

She faces competition from Roschell Clayton (1.87m) and Kimberley Williamson (1.86m).

Distin has expressed confidence in her preparations leading up to the championships, as she aims to deliver an excellent performance in the event. “I am in good shape and I am very happy to be here and so I just want to jump over two metres and higher and so that is the main goal for me,” said Distin. “I am really feeling good because I feel like I can come out here and do something exciting. I just have to work on my approach and just get things done and so I am just super-excited to be here,” she said.

The 24-year-old Distin, a student at Texas A&M in the United States, is the only Jamaican woman to have achieved the Olympic standard of 1.97m this season.

She highlighted that she and her coach Mario Satenga have been working assiduously to improve some of the technical flaws in her approach this season and she has been seeing some good results so far.

“My season has been going well because I have been working on stuff outdoors, but it hasn’t been clicking as yet, but I know that Coach Mario Sategna is going to get me right because he has prepared me for this,” Distin noted. “I just have to just go out there and do what I have to do to win the competition. Having already have the Olympic mark, there is no pressure on me because I am just going to go out there have some fun and try to better that mark at the trials,” she added.