Gazette Sports Editor Adrian Robson continues his series of profiles on Bermuda's Olympic athletes in Beijing.

Today he examines the careers of young long jumpers Arantxa King and Tyrone Smith.

ARANTXA KING

Age: 18

Event: Long Jump

Olympic coach: Gerry Swan

Olympic manager: Gerry Swan

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As the daughter of former track and field international and university coach Branwen Smith and former Cup Match and Police pace bowler Adrian King, Arantxa was always destined for athletic glory.

But her potential didn't really come to the fore until the summer of 2005 when, as a 15-year-old, in the space of two weeks she pulled off two stunning victories.

The Massachusetts-based schoolgirl won gold at the World Youth Championships in Morocco and then struck gold again at the Pan Am Junior Championships in Canada.

Her best leap over those two weeks was a remarkable 6.39 metres, which would have been good enough for 10th place at the senior Worlds.

She also took first place that year in the Under-17 division at the Carifta Games.

Since then, hers has been a name to watch.

Early in 2006, at 16, she was named Bermuda's Female Athlete of the Year.

But very much like triathlete Flora Duffy, Arantxa has found it difficult to continue competing at the very highest level.

At the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, her best leap was 5.95 metres, well short of her PB and not good enough to catapult her into the final.

But her extraordinary talents brought silver at the Carifta Games that year and yet another gold in the Under-20 division at the CAC Games, this time not in the long jump but in the triple jump with a leap of 12.84 metres.

Like Duffy before her, King has also previously competed in Beijing, taking 10th place in the long jump at the Junior World Championships in 2006, with a best of 5.57 metres.

At last year's Pan Am Games in Brazil, there were signs that she was returning to her top form, a leap of 6.18m earning her eighth place.

Soon after, she joined Stanford University where she has continued her preparation for these Games, recently competing again at the Junior Worlds in Poland.

Now, with her best of 6.39 metres in the distant past, she'd like nothing more to go a few centimetres further when she steps out in Beijing's National Stadium on the morning of August 19.

TYRONE SMITH

Age: 23

Event: Long Jump

Olympic coach: Thomas Tellez

Olympic manager: Gerry Swan

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Smith might be the least recognised of all of Bermuda's Olympians, having shaped his track and field career almost exclusively overseas.

A student at the University of Missouri-Rolla, he placed a creditable fourth at the NCAA Division Two track and field championships in 2006 and that same year was named the Great Lake region's Athlete of the Year by the US Track and Field Coaches Association.

Performances in '06 earned him a place in the 2007 Bermuda team for the Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, where he narrowly failed to reach the final, leaping 7.32 metres in the qualifying round.

Earlier this year in Greece he set a new Bermuda record of 8.03 metres, missing out on automatic Olympic qualifying by just two centimetres.

But his impressive displays have brought him a Games wild card and in recent weeks he has been spending much of his time in Europe, touring the track and field circuit where he was determined to make the Olympic qualifying standard despite having already been afforded automatic entry.

His goal, he says, is to improve on his national record when the men's long jump gets underway late in the evening of Saturday, August 16.