President of the Bermuda National Athletics Association Freddie Evans believes Jah-Nhai Perinchief’s appearance at the World Athletics Indoor Championships today will serve as inspiration for the island’s current and future athletes.

Perinchief will line up in the triple jump event, which gets under way at 8.15am inside Štark Arena in Serbian capital, Belgrade.

It marks a high point in a maiden professional season that has brought many rewards and promise for the 24-year-old, who has thrown his name in the hat as one of the most promising talents in the event in the world.

The Bermudian is responsible for the sixth and ninth best indoor marks in the world going into the championships and Evans is well aware of what his appearance at the event will mean for the island’s athletics programme.

“Jah-Nhai has been around us since he was 8 years old, so to see him emerge as a world leader and do his thing is just heart-warming and it lends support for everyone else in the athletics circle,” Evans told The Royal Gazette. Evans believes Perinchief’s efforts will help to encourage more participation and success in the sport.

“So after Jah-Nhai there will be future Jah-Nhai Perinchiefs because of his efforts at the championships,” he said.

Perinchief faces a tough field in Belgrade with Pedro Pablo Pichardo from Portugal, the Olympic and European champion, two-time indoor gold medal-winner Will Claye of the United States, and Cuba’s Lázaro Martinez, who has the second and third-best jumps this year with 17.21 metres and 17.12, which make him the most in-form competitor in the field, all lining up on the runway against the Bermudian.

He will also come up against Algeria’s Yasser Triki, a finalist at the Tokyo 2020 Games as well as 2019 European Indoor champion Nazim Babayev from Azerbaijan and Max Hess, Germany’s 2016 European outdoor champion.

Perinchief will, however, back himself to do well after registering an impressive season that saw him jump to 16.91, the second-best distance ever recorded by a Bermudian behind Brian Wellman’s 17.72 national record set in 1995.

Incidentally, Wellman recorded that mark while also competing at the World Indoor Championships in Barcelona, Spain, where he took home the gold medal.

Perinchief is also on track to to make a big impact in the pit, showing his class while finishing second at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on February 6, with a 16.55 effort before delivering consecutive victories in Arizona, firstly at the Tyson Invitational with his 16.91 personal best mark and then a 16.84 distance at the Arkansas Qualifier six days later.

At his previous international assignments, Perinchief finished fifth at the NACAC Championships in 2015 in Costa Rica and placed seventh at the World under-20 Championships in Poland in 2016.

Perinchief was recently named Bermuda’s top sportsman of 2021 at the 40th Government Sports Awards at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club.