Budding Bermudian athlete Arantxa King warmed up for the 2007 Pan-Am Games by clinching a bronze medal at the Games’ sister competition — the Pan-Am Junior Athletics Championships.

The Island’s number one long jumper leaves Sao Paulo — the scene of her recent triumph — for Rio tonight where she will be joined by high jumper Deon Brangman and long jumper Tyrone Smith as Bermuda’s athletic contingent.

King, a former world youth champion, leaped 6.11 metres in the long jump in the junior championships at the weekend to give her the perfect fillip ahead of the showpiece event which starts on Friday.

Branwen Smith-King, team manager and Arantxa’s mother, has purposefully under-trained the 17-year-old so to prevent potential burn-out and to ward against injury due to her recent growth spurts. And she has challenged the trio of athletes to be competitive in Rio and push for a podium place.

“This is a very young team we’re taking and we hope in five years’ time, if they can stay fit and healthy, they will go into championships expected to win a medal,” she said. “We hope they will be provide the nucleus of our athletics team at the Beijing Olympics next summer.

“I’m not saying we will bring home a medal but there’s no point going there unless you believe you can achieve something. Sometimes I feel Bermudian athletes are too happy just to be part of a major tournament and it’s about time we realised we can compete with the world’s best.

“Arantxa is the youngest of the three and her body has developed a lot in the last few years and we’ve been working more on technique and strength rather than having her compete too regularly. She enjoyed such great success at the start of her athletics career and has a lot of potential.”

Arantxa, who was last year’s top high school female jumper in the US, had hoped to be joined by her 21-year-old sister in Rio, but Akilah narrowly failed in the 200m.

King senior had won the 200 metres at the Ivy League Championships in Providence, Rhode Island, to put herself on the brink of qualifying for Pan-Am. The Brown University student broke the tape in a winning time of 24.0 seconds flat — a tenth of a second off the school record and two-tenths of a second off the Pan-Am qualifying mark.

“Akilah was disappointed not to join her sister in Pan-Am but she has had a terrific season in the US and has really progressed,” added Smith-King.

The Pan Am Games are a continental version of the Olympic Games, and are always conducted one year before the Olympics. The first Pan Am Games were held in 1951, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This year’s event runs from July 13 until 29.