The last field event in the Long Island Elite Track and Field Invitational at the indoor facilities of St. Anthony’s High School marked the performance of the triple jump. And what a showing turned in by Bay Shore High School senior Omari Buckmire who recorded a 47’ 2” jump.
In this event, he had three attempts in each of the preliminary and championship rounds in the triple jump.
All of his distances in the last round measured 45 feet. He made his winning jump on his first attempt of the initial round.
In addition to the triple jump, he competed in the long jump prior to the triple one. He fouled out, as long jumping is not his main event.
His 47’2” tied his personal best performance which he established last year.
In the State Qualifying meet, he turned in a 46’ 6” effort, and a week prior to this meet, came the Suffolk County meet, in which he tripled jumped 45’ 11.”
“I love these facilities,” he said about the St. Anthony’s one in Huntington, New York. “I got my personal best here in the triple jump as a freshman. It’s always been a pleasure to come and jump here. I’m getting back into good shape from last year when I injured my heel.”
Buckmire won the long and triple jumps at the Rhode Island Classic for the past two years and is ranked first on Long Island in the triple jump in the time of the Elite Meet.
Originally Buckmire came from the Caribbeans where he played soccer for a club. Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobaggo, Buckmire came from an athletic family Omari’s mother Sherin Stoe Thomas was a runner and his father Junior Gabriel Buckmire was a soccer player. But the latter’s father passed away when he was three years old.
“The reason that I got into track was because she beat me all the time in races,” the student athlete recalled. “So I said ‘I’m tired of this ; so I did track, just to get back at her.”
He was raised in the City of Port n Spain where the main sports were cricket, soccer and running. He gave up soccer when he was in the sixth grade in the Caribbean.”
“I played cricket but I wasn’t that good at it,” he recalled. “That wasn’t my sport.”
He and his family came from Trinidad to Brooklyn where they spent four months and later moved to Bay Shore.
“The difference between living in Trinidad and in America is that the schools, people and weather conditions were much different,” said Buckmire.
In the fall, he trains for the track team and plays soccer with his friends. He ran cross country as a freshman but didn’t like it and gave it up.
“My goals for the outdoor season is to jump 5’2” and to make it to the Olympics,” he added.
