Jah-Nhai Perinchief and his Iowa Central team-mates defended their Junior College National Men’s Indoor Track and Field Championships title at Pittsburgh State University at the weekend.

Perinchief, who is ranked seventh in the world in the high jump at the under-20 level, secured two podium finishes at the Robert W Plaster Centre to help his school to its fifth indoor title in seven years.

He was second in the high jump with a leap of 2.15 metres and third in the triple jump with a leap of 15.55, which equalled his personal indoor best achieved at the Hawkeye Invitational at the University of Iowa in January.

Perinchief’s jump matched the winning height. However, he was pipped on a countback having had one knock down. South Plains and Barton finished second and third overall at last weekend’s indoor championships in Kansas.

Perinchief is one of Bermuda’s most promising track and field athletes.

He is a two-times national junior college champion and five-times national junior college All-American who also holds the Bermuda high jump record of 2.26, which he achieved at the Wichita State KT Woodman Classic last year.

Perinchief has represented Bermuda at the Youth Olympics and hopes to compete at the World Championship in London this summer. He will follow in the footsteps of Bermudian world champion triple jumper Brian Wellman, by enrolling in the University of Arkansas’ track and field programme this year.

He chose Arkansas over several other universities, including Georgia, Purdue, Iowa and Albany and will begin studies in the autumn. Arkansas’ legendary programme has won 11 NCAA cross-country titles, 20 indoor titles and ten outdoor titles. Lamont Marshall was also in action in the weekend, placing twelfth at the NACAC Cross Country Championships in a time of 23min 59.56sec.