NAN­JING – Ja­maica cel­e­brat­ed its first medal at the 2025 World Ath­let­ics In­door Cham­pi­onships as Ray­mond Richards clinched bronze in the men’s high jump here Fri­day at the Nan­jing Cube in Chi­na.

Com­pet­ing in his de­but in­ter­na­tion­al cham­pi­onship, Richards de­liv­ered a stand­out per­for­mance to se­cure a spot on the podi­um.

On his first at­tempt at each, Richards show­cased re­mark­able con­sis­ten­cy, clear­ing the first three heights of 2.14m, 2.20m, and 2.24m.

He then cleared 2.28m on his sec­ond at­tempt, a height that proved de­ci­sive in the com­pe­ti­tion. Richards was among four ath­letes to suc­cess­ful­ly clear 2.28m, but he ul­ti­mate­ly se­cured third place based on count­back.

New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr claimed the sil­ver medal, while Amer­i­can Eli­jah Kosi­ba and Ukraine’s Oleh Doroshchuk fin­ished fourth and fifth, re­spec­tive­ly.

The gold medal went to South Ko­rea’s Sanghyeok Woo, who cleared 2.31m, match­ing his sea­son’s best.

Ja­maica’s oth­er com­peti­tor in the event, Olympic fi­nal­ist Ro­maine Beck­ford, fin­ished ninth af­ter clear­ing the open­ing height of 2.14m.

CMC