A buoyant Arantxa King once again belied her tender years with a pleasing performance in the Pan-Am Games long jump final despite being the youngest athlete on show.

King, who is just 17 years old, achieved her pre-competition remit of claiming a top-eight finish in a 14-strong field including some esteemed world stage jumpers.

The former world youth champion made her Games bow with a 6.18 leap at the Joao Havelange Stadium and has now set her sights on continuing her meteoric rise by qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"I'm actually pretty pleased with myself as I wanted to make the top eight and that's what I did," said King, who warmed up for the Games by clinching a bronze medal at the Games' sister competition ¿ the Pan-Am Junior Athletics Championships earlier this month.

"Obviously I would have liked to have jumped a little further but I'm happy with my performance.

"It wasn't my season's best jump but it was still a pretty good distance. I felt good in my last jump as well even though it was a foul ¿ it was all good."

Team manager Branwen Smith-King, Arantxa's mother, has purposefully under-trained King this season to prevent potential burnout, after she missed the early stages of her campaign through injury.

She was last year's top high school female jumper in the US, and is sister of Akilah who narrowly failed to qualify for the Pan-Am Games in the 200m.

King, who will attend Stanford University in the fall, said the Games had been a great experience and would provide her with a further platform to build from in her development as an athlete.

"I was injured for part of the season and I only started to compete again at the end of the season," she said.

"It hasn't been a long season for me but it's gone quite well when I have competed. It was a really strong field yesterday and most of athletes I was competing against I look up to.

"I was watching them to see how they were going about their thing, so considering the competition I was content with how I did.

"I hope to look forward to the Beijing Olympics now. I start at Stanford University this up coming fall so I hope to start training a lot harder. I'll certainly be looking to qualify ¿ that's my main goal.

"The whole Pan-Am experience has been great for me. At first I was a little skeptical as I've been out here for three weeks and I thought I might get a little bored.

"It's my first Pan-Am Games and it's the biggest competition I've been involved, along with the Commonwealth Games last year."

Much to the delight of the partisan crowd Brazilian Maurren Maggi took gold with a jump of 6.84, with compatriot Keila Costa taking silver with a 6.73 leap.

Tomorrow Deon Brangman will be competing in the men's high jump final. He will be the final Bermudian athletics competitor to take centre stage at Pan-Am following on from Arantxa King and Tyrone Smith.

Long jumper Smith narrowly failed to qualify for the men's long jump final on Monday.

The 22-year-old marked his Pan-Am Games debut with a leap of 7.32 at the Joao Havelange Stadium, to finish 14th out of 20 competitors.

He may have cut a dejected figure after it emerged he had not made the cut, but coach Branwen Smith-King was full of praise for her athlete who will now also look towards next year's Beijing Olympics.

Pan-Ams extra ¿ Page 15