Former Hog sets sights on Jamaican team

FAYETTEVILLE - From 2015 NCAA Indoor champion to 2015 NCAA Outdoor champion to 2016 World Indoor champion to 2016 Olympic Games champion seems the natural progression for former Arkansas Razorbacks hurdler Omar McLeod.

However between the hurdles McLeod has cleared and the Olympic hurdles August awaiting in Rio DeJaneiro Brazil, McLeod has the hurdles awaiting in Thursday’s Olympic Trials in his native Jamaica.

Those are the 110-meter hurdles McLeod must clear first to advance to Brazil.

The former Razorback says he’s ready to clear them while still training like he’s a Razorback in Fayetteville under Arkansas men’s sprints coach Doug Case.

“It’s going great,” McLeod said. “I am in great shape and am just continuing to stay healthy and stay on top of warmup and cool downs, the small things that help me stay fit.”

The injuries that prevented him from competing in the 2014 NCAA Outdoor meet after winning the 2014 NCAA Indoor have stayed away this year just like in 2015, when his 7.45 winning the NCAA Indoor 60-meter hurdles final set a Jamaican record and shattered the 7.49 NCAA Indoor record. He won the NCAA Outdoor 110-meter hurdles in 13.0 before and bettered that last summer upon turning pro clocking, 12.97 then shattered his personal best winning the World Indoor Championship 60-meter hurdles in 7.41 last winter.

Delaying starting his Outdoor competition until late April at the Drake Relays, McLeod has steadily dropped his 110-meter hurdles times leading into the Jamaican Trials.

“Coach (Case) told me there is no way I should be running that fast,” McLeod said. “But I haven’t peaked yet so that’s definitely a good sign. I really want to be the passenger and he is the driver and I try to listen to him. He and Matt Clark, our weight coach.”

Though coaching explosive events, the sprints and hurdles, Case coaches calmly.

“He is definitely a role model for me,” McLeod said. “He’s calm, he’s chilled and nothing bothers him. I do that before a race and it works out that I am not too jittery.”

Has their coach-athlete relationship changed since McLeod turned pro.

“If it has changed at all it has changed for the better,” McLeod said. “Our relationship has grown.”

Travis Geopfert, the field events coach working so closely with Case in general and graduating six-time NCAA champion long jumper-sprinter Jarrion Lawson, said McLeod improves immensely by training like he’s still a Razorback.

“One thing good for Omar transitioning to a professional athlete is you don’t big-time yourself,” Geopfert said. “You just have to keep building on what’s got you there. If you can make a half a percent or one percent increase in the things that you do, those are pretty significant increases at that elite level. So it’s more of the same.”

McLeod acknowledged it pained him, knowing he would win the NCAA Outdoor 110-meter hurdles if still eligible, to see Coach Chris Bucknam’s SEC Cross Country-Indoor-Outdoor triple crown Hogs come so close to winning the NCAA Outdoor earlier this month as the 62-56 runner-up to Florida.

“Yes, a lot of times I get in the stage of nostalgia that if I was out there we would definitely win,” McLeod said. “A lot of times I forget that I am a professional athlete and only remember that when the team leaves me behind to go out and compete. I have a lot of faith in my team and I am really happy I am here with my team. They keep me grounded.”

A superb sprinter, McLeod has clocked a 9.9 100-meters and ran on Arkansas’ 4 x 100 NCAA Outdoor champion in 2015, and displayed the strength to run on All-American 4 x 400 relays and in Jamaica was as famed in the 400-intermediate hurdles as the 110-meter high hurdles.

However McLeod says for this Olympics it’s better for his country and himself that he concentrate on the short hurdles.

“Jamaica has a lot of sprinters,” McLeod said. “Right now my focus is on the hurdles.”

(Nate Allen covers the Razorbacks for the News-Times.)

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