Photo by Julian Finney (Getty Images).
Levern Spencer is into the finals of a global championship for the third time in her senior career.
Competing at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in Athletics in Sopot, Poland on Friday, the slight Saint Lucian cleared 1.95m to qualify for Saturday’s final.
The height is the 11th best in the world for 2014, and surpasses the 1.91 the Babonneau native recorded in January as her previous season-best mark. It also resets Levern’s lifetime-best, which was previously 1.92 in February 2010.
That height of 1.92 was a National Indoor Record for Saint Lucia, and a record for the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. Levern’s new mark of 1.95 is almost certainly a new CARICOM record, and should be a top 5 all-time Caribbean mark.
Levern has previously made the finals of two World Championships outdoors, but this is her first time in the last round of WIC. The 29-year-old Entrepot Secondary alumna is also a Commonwealth Games and World Youth Championships bronze medalist.
Levern is Saint Lucia’s only athlete in Sopot, and the only Caribbean woman in the High Jump field of 17. She has jumped as high as 1.98 outdoors, in 2010, her most prolific and bountiful season ever.