Lawson’s hamstring part of bad day for former Hogs

FAYETTEVILLE — Jarrion Lawson was on the verge of competing to make his second consecutive United States Olympic track and field team.

Then at the worst possible time, a hamstring injury prevented the six-time NCAA champion for the University of Arkansas from taking any long jumps in the final at the U.S. Olympic Trials on Sunday night in Eugene, Ore.

“I’ve coached Jarrion for nine years, and this was the first time his body wouldn’t allow him to compete,” said Tennessee assistant coach Travis Geopfert, who first coached Lawson at Arkansas from 2013-16. “He’s had little things physically to deal with, but they never stopped him from competing before.”

Lawson, who finished fourth in the long jump at the 2016 Olympics, aggravated his right hamstring during Friday night’s qualifying round, when he fouled twice, then had a wind-aided 26-7 3/4 for the top mark.

“This is new,” Lawson said in a USA Track and Field interview session. “I’ve never had something like this keep me out of competition. Physically I’m usually ready to go, but this time I just wasn’t.”

Lawson went through warmups at Hayward Field and hoped to get in some jumps, but he passed on three attempts and wasn’t able to advance to take three more.

“It would have been real easy for him to scratch from the event,” Geopfert said. “But he tried, and tried and tried. All the way to the point where he passed on the first jump, then he tried to run. Then he passed on the second jump, then tried to run to get ready for the third jump. He just couldn’t do it.

“We were on the track, back to the medical tent, on the track, back to the medical tent, on the track … the guy gave it everything he had.”

Geopfert said Lawson, 27, hurt his hamstring while running the 100 meters in a meet in Nashville, Tenn., on June 6.

“We thought we had it under control, and things were looking good,” Geopfert said. “But he went out for the qualifying round, and he hurt his hamstring again.

“We spent two days trying to go through every medical thing you could do. We kept trying for a miracle.”

Lawson said the hamstring hurt badly.

“Ultimately, I just couldn’t go,” he said.

Lawson’s injury was part of a tough Sunday for former Arkansas NCAA champions, including Omar McLeod and Taliyah Brooks.

McLeod, the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in the 110 hurdles, was heavily favored to win at the Jamaican Trials, but he hit the first hurdle with his right foot and never recovered. He slowed up after the final hurdle and finished eighth in 16.22 seconds.

“Omar hit the first hurdle really hard,” said Arkansas assistant coach Doug Case, who was at the Jamaican National Stadium for the Trials because Razorbacks Phillip Lemonious and Ryan Brown were competing. “He had no shot at that point. When he hit that hurdle like he did, he was out of the race.”

McLeod, 27, said in a Twitter post after the race he had cramps in his calves and wasn’t sure how to react. He said that scheduling the race at 8:30 a.m. also was disappointing.

“Sprinters aren’t used to doing anything at 8:30 in the morning,” Case said. “Then to have to go out there and go full speed, that was really hard.”

Case said the meet schedule kept changing during the week, possibly because of a 2 p.m. curfew in Kingston on Sunday.

No spectators were allowed at the Trials, just athletes, coaches and officials.

“I think the curfew was a covid thing, but I’m not sure,” Case said. “That could have been the reason for it. There was never an explanation for it given to us.”

McLeod tweeted Monday that his coach and physical therapist called a member of the Jamaican Athletic Association before the race to inform him that McLeod was having physical issues.

“They were told I still had to run, hence the reason we did not pull out of the race,” McLeod tweeted. “We were really trying to figure out what was best amidst the chaos & panic.”

Brooks was fourth in the heptathlon at the U.S. Trials through five of seven events, but she fainted while warming up for the javelin with temperatures soaring to 108 degrees and heat on the track at more than 150 degrees.

After Brooks, 26, had to be helped off the track in a wheelchair and received medical treatment, her request to re-enter the competition to get three javelin throws and run the 800 was granted by the USATF Games Committee. But after the meet was delayed for a few hours, Brooks withdrew.

“There’s no doubt Taliyah could have made the U.S. team if this hadn’t happened to her,” Arkansas women’s cross country and track and field Coach Lance Harter said of Brooks being overcome by the excessive heat. “Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to finish.”

Harter said it was the right call for Brooks to withdraw.

“I think cooler heads — no pun intended — prevailed and said, ‘Hey, no, no, no. You can’t go back out there,’ ” Harter said. “For all the years she’d been prepping for this, I understand her competitive spirit is there going, ‘I can still do this.’ But you really can’t when you collapse. I hate to say it, but after what happened to her, she wasn’t going to finish in the top three.

“Taliyah is still approaching the prime of her career and is a heck of an athlete, so we’ll have to see if she wants to keep doing this and try it again in 2024.”

Case said he hopes it’s possible for McLeod to compete at the Olympics even though he didn’t finish among the top three at the Jamaican Trials.

“Omar’s the Olympic champion and he’s the No. 2-ranked hurdler in the world this year,” Case said of McLeod’s season-best time of 13.01 in Kingston on June 10. “I don’t know this for sure, but I’ve got to think there’s at least a possibility [Jamaican athletic officials] could still decide to send him to the Olympics. If there’s somebody they want in, I think they can do that.”

McLeod tweeted he hopes to be able to compete at the Olympics in Tokyo.

“I do not know what will happen,” McLeod tweeted. “But I am hoping and praying I get a chance to go defend that title.”

For Lawson, any hopes of competing at the Olympics ended when he couldn’t long jump Sunday night. To make the U.S. team in an individual event, an athlete has to finish among the top three at the Trials.

“It’s a tough pill to swallow for Jarrion,” Geopfert said. “The guy’s been through more than any athlete should ever be put through.”

On June 1, 2019, Lawson was banned from competition for four years by the IAAF after testing positive for epitrenbolone, a banned substance. Lawson denied any wrongdoing and said the substance could have entered his body through eating tainted beef.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport eventually agreed with Lawson and cleared him of the doping charge and reinstated him for competition, but that was on March 9, 2020, nearly 19 months after the initial charge — and a few days before the world’s athletic events were shutdown by the coronavirus pandemic.

“First Jarrion was wrongfully banned by the IAAF,” Geopfert said. “It was so ridiculous what happened to him. He was exonerated completely, and he was ready to compete again, but covid hit and there was no competition.

“Then he finally was able to get back to competing, he was doing well and things were coming around, and he got hurt.”

Geopfert said Lawson had worked his way into top shape before his injury.

“Up until the last few weeks when Jarrion got hurt, he was ready to jump really far in his quest to win the gold medal in Tokyo,” Geopfert said. “That was the plan, and that’s what he was prepared to do.

“The way this all went down is so unfortunate. It just wasn’t meant to be, I guess.

“But I have so much appreciation for Jarrion as a person, his grit and his perseverance.

“I told Jarrion as tough as this was, he’s going to come back from it. I don’t know exactly what the lesson is right now, but he’s going to find it and come back better.”