Woo Pig Sooie! McLeod Sizzled Track In 2015!

Before 2015, only one man had gone sub-13 seconds in the 110 meter hurdles at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships: Renaldo Nehemiah of Maryland, back in 1979, when he used a more-than-favorable tailwind in Champaign, Illinois, to push him to a scorching 12.91 (+3.5). 

Omar McLeod nearly became the second almost six years ago at Historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

McLeod left the competition in the dust as he covered 110 meters and cleared 10 consecutive hurdles in 13.01 seconds. And just like Nehemiah 36 years earlier, McLeod had one of the strongest tailwinds ever recorded in meet history at his back – but that 3.9 m/s push can be more of a hinderance than help for hurdlers. 

It also allowed McLeod to avenge the previous year and wash a sour taste out of his mouth.

“Coming in, I was thinking about it a lot,” McLeod told the media of the trials and tribulations from 2014, when a quadriceps injury forced him to miss the meet. “You have a lot at stake and a lot of people depending on you, the team depending on you – but I had to re-evaluate myself. I had to talk to myself and talk to my mom and say, ‘I got to let it go. Last year was last year.’ I had to put it behind me.” 

McLeod had an amazing sophomore year, both indoors and outdoors. Indoors, McLeod broke the collegiate record in the 60 meter hurdles with his 7.45 and captured a second consecutive NCAA title in that event. Then, outdoors, he became the fifth fastest collegian in the 110H with his 13.21 effort at the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa. (Want to know how much the hurdling landscape changed since then? McLeod now has the seventh fastest mark in the 60H and sits in a tie as the seventh fastest performer on the 110H chart.) 

“This (outdoor) win actually meant a lot more than indoors, even though I broke the collegiate record,” McLeod said after the meet. “I’m from Jamaica and Jamaica is all outdoors, so my entire life, I’ve been doing outdoors.”