In a bid to reignite his career, Jamaican athletics prodigy Michael O’Hara has left Racers Track Club, returning to his former Calabar High coach, Craig Sewell.

O’Hara struck gold in the 200m at the IAAF World Youth Championship in 2013 and left Jamaica’s Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships in a blaze of glory in 2015, capturing the 100m, 200m and 110m hurdles titles. O’Hara was seen as one that would keep Jamaica’s flag flying high in world athletics.

However, he has struggled with injuries since high school. In 2018 he made a return to the track, slowly returning to the kind of form that fans are accustomed to.

Coach Sewell, who guided O’Hara’s hurdles career at high school, is a bit puzzled as to why he has not transitioned and taken the world by storm.

“Working with him is a real pleasure. From Calabar days everybody knows Michael as a workaholic. He works really hard and it is kind of crazy that he hasn’t made it yet as a pro. But training with him reminded me of how he was as an athlete at Calabar,” Sewell told the Jamaica Observer.

“He and Orlando Bennett are with me and training together…it’s like a competition. I have a good feeling about it and Orlando did so well as a 19-year-old, running so fast coming out of high school. They are training together and pushing each other every day,” said Sewell.

“He (O’Hara) is going to run really, really fast after a couple of things that I could assist him with technically and speed wise. The speed [times] will come down too. I think he is going to run some crazy times — very interesting times ahead,” he added.

O’Hara is just as excited to be back with his high school coach.

“This is where it all started for me and so I look forward to improving on my times from last season and taking it day by day,” said O’Hara.

“My programme is geared toward the 100 and 200 as well, but the hurdles [are] my main focus,” he explained.

The super talented O’Hara has a personal best of 10.19 and 20.45 seconds for the 100m and 200m established in 2014. As recently as in August, he achieved his lifetime best of 13.61 seconds in the 110m hurdles.

— Howard Walker