Defending 110m hurdles Olympic champion Omar McLeod is still smarting from crashing out of the recently concluded Jamaica National Senior Trials, which leaves him without one of the three automatic spots at the Tokyo Games.

McLeod, ahead of the Wanda Diamond League meet in Gateshead, England on Tuesday (July 13), argued that Jamaica let him down for not giving him a medical exemption as was done for Usain Bolt and others.

The 27-year-old Jamaican admitted he will be “running off emotions” come tomorrow’s meet and said mentally he isn’t in a “good place”.

“I’m very heartbroken, honestly. I just don’t think I was granted the fair opportunity to make the team, with the ridiculous schedule that I’ve never seen in my years of track and field,” he began.

Going further, McLeod claimed Jamaica was on “complete lockdown” the night before the finals, slamming the scheduling the following Sunday as “stupid”.

“The country was on complete lockdown, so my team and I did the best we could, drank some soup and a salad before…trying to go back at 5 in the morning for a finals at 8—I mean, that’s stupid. For an event that has the reigning Olympic champion, you don’t treat the event like that. Give me a fair opportunity like everybody else to make the team,” McLeod added.

“I didn’t have the audacity to not show up at the trials, thinking I was obligated to make the team. I went there ready to compete and earn my spot the rightful way and in the morning I had the most human moment where I had severe cramp before the race,” he said.

McLeod, however, did not give clarity at the Gateshead presser whether he applied for a medical exemption or communicated his condition to the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), which organises the trials, before the finals.

The way he sees it, McLeod brought Jamaica golden glory on many stages, including the Olympics, and to be left out was ‘heartbreaking’.

“In that moment I didn’t know what to do and I thought my country would have had my back; given [me] a medical exemption, hoping that it’s been done for Usain Bolt and so many of our athletes. You know, they couldn’t run in the finals or something happened and they filled out a medical exemption. And I mean that’s Usain Bolt, you can’t deny him from going to the championships and I thought I was in the same position since knowing that I won my country all their major gold medals in historic moments… I was the first Jamaican to win a gold medal in every championship, I thought I was gonna be okay,” McLeod explained.

The reigning champ further stated that he and his team exhausted all appeals, met with the JAAA selection team and did everything he could but the “decision was up to them”.

Despite the setback, McLeod said that he would continue to show the world he’s still a class act and wants to definitively declare he’s the man to beat this year.

“I mean, I’ve proven that over and over throughout the season. I went to the championships as the world leader before Grant Holloway ran (12.81s). I was competing well and I was gonna treat the trials just the same,” he said.

“My coach and I were on par to run something ridiculous at trials so I was robbed of running really fast—a potential Jamaican record or world record. So I have nothing else to prove, I am ready to defend that title,” McLeod added.

The remarks, however, fly in contradiction to his public statement immediately after the finals, where McLeod said that he had a massage, ate dinner but was restless and tried to sleep ahead of the final.

After recognising he had a severe bout of cramps in his adductor and calf muscles, McLeod told the Jamaican public that he called his coach, explained his predicament and tried to address the issue to little success.

In his statement after failing to finish the 110m hurdles finals, McLeod bemoaned the seemingly ‘lack of excitement’ for his event, claiming that the sprint hurdles are “a lot more technical and it’s not a race [you] just wake up and freestyle after not recovering well”

• Related article: Omar McLeod still hopeful of Olympic title defense, bemoans lack of respect for sprint hurdles