There could have been an act of sabotage against Jamaica by hosts Bahamas, who withdrew at the eleventh hour a team to compete in last night’s 4 x 400 meters relays at the New Life Invitational Meet.

That’s according to an anonymous official of the local governing for track and field, as Jamaica’s men’s 4×400 meters team failed to qualify for the 2024 Olympic games despite a gallant effort at the meet.

This meant for first time that Jamaica will be missing from the event at a major global championship since 1960.

The quartet of Rahiem Hayles, Jevaughn Powell, Kimar Farquharson, and Tarees Rhoden running against Barbados and an All stars team won the event in 2 minutes 59.75 seconds, needing to clock at least 2 minutes 59.11 seconds to leapfrog Zambia for the final qualifying slot.

Even if Jamaica had ran the qualifying time there is in all likelihood, would not have met the World Athletics criteria, as only two countries participated in the race – World Athletics criteria stipulates that at least three countries should have participated.

According to the official who spoke based on the condition anonymity, the Bahamas may have sabotaged Jamaica, because they could have ran even schoolboys to represent the country in the race where only Jamaica and Barbados participated as countries.

Jamaica had missed out on qualifying at the recently held world relays in the Bahamas and entered last nights event with a best effort of 2 minutes, 59.34 seconds from the World Championships in Budapest last year which placed them one place outside of the top 16 countries.

Zambia is currently in the final qualifying spot, with 2 minutes 59.12 seconds, behind France 2-minutes 58.45 seconds.

June 30 is the deadline for qualification for the men’s 4x400m team for the games in Paris but it doesn’t seem Jamaica will make another attempt.