Misfortune for McLeod in World Champs sprint hurdles final

A hamstring injury knocked defending men’s 110m hurdles champion Omar McLeod out of the medals on Wednesday’s sixth day of competition at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha. After clocking a brisk 13.08 seconds to win semi-final two to enter the final as the fastest man, McLeod looked set cement to himself as the best Caribbean male sprint hurdler in World Championship history and the first non-American to defend his 110m metre hurdles title.

McLeod who hit six of the 10 hurdles, tumbled over hurdle number 8 ended up last. McLeod who impeded Orlando Ortega, was subsequently disqualified. He later disclosed that he started to feel his left hamstring during warm-up and ended up concentrating more on the injury concern during the race instead of executing his proper technique.

American Grant Holloway took the gold medal in 13.10 seconds with silver going to Authorized Neutral Athlete Sergey Shubenkov in 13.15 seconds and bronze to France’s Pascal Matinot-Lagarde in 13.18 seconds.

Elsewhere on the day, Pan American Games bronze medallist Russell Clayton returned 54.17 seconds to win semi-final two of the 400m hurdles and remain with a chance of becoming only the fourth Jamaican medallist in history in the event after Deon Hemmings-McCatty, Melaine Walker and Ristananna Tracey.

Despite posting a personal best 55.16 seconds, World Under-20 silver medallist Shiann Salmon missed out on the final.

Demish Gaye with a season’s best of 44.66 and debutant Akeem Bloomfield with 44.77, both advanced to Friday's 4000m final as fastest losers.

The gamble by Commonwealth Games 3000m steeplechase gold medallist Aisha praught-Leer to run the 1500 metres, backfired as she missed out on the semi-finals after placing 7^th in 4 minutes, 09.81 seconds.

In the field, Commonwealth and Pan American Games champion Danniel Thomas- Dodd will enter Thursday's shot put final with some amount of confidence after heaving the implement to 19.32.metres on her 3rd and final attempt in qualifying. Shanice Love with 59.50 metres and Shadae Lawrence 58.51, ended 16th and 19th overall in the discus qualifying.