BERLIN, Germany -- Tyrone Smith posted a top mark of 25-4 (7.72 meters) Thursday during the preliminary heats of the long jump competition at the World Track and Field Championships.
Smith’s mark ranked 17th in his flight during the qualifying rounds as only the top 12 overall finishers out of the 45 competitors were to advance to Saturday’s finals.
After an opening round jump of 25 feet, Smith posted his best mark in the second round and then had a jump just one-half inch shorter on his third attempt.
The top performance in the preliminaries came from Dwight Phillips of the United States, who had a mark of 27-8 1/4 on his only jump of the evening. The cutoff mark for the finals was 26-3 1/2.
While competing at Missouri S&T, Smith earned three All-America awards in the long jump, including national runner-up finishes in the 2006 NCAA Division II Outdoor and 2007 Indoor Championships. He won the Great Lakes Valley Conference championships in both the indoor and outdoor long jump in 2006 and again at the 2007 indoor meet where Smith also repeated as the league's indoor triple jump champion.
Smith's performance at the 2006 GLVC indoor meet earned him the league's "Athlete of the Year" award for the meet after he won the long jump, triple jump and took third in the 55-meter dash.
Last summer, Smith placed 15th in the long jump in the Olympic Games in Beijing with a mark of 25-11½ (7.91 meters), only three centimeters shy of reaching the finals in the event.