Nigeria’s top female athlete of the current generation, Tobi Amusan will take consolation from the fact that she ran a season’s best time of 12.23 seconds on Thursday, despite losing her women’s 100m hurdles record to Masai Russell of USA inside Letzigrund Stadium in Zurich, Switzerland.
Sports247 reports that the 26-year-old Russell produced one of the standout moments of an extraordinary night of track and field heroics at the Weltklasse Zürich Diamond League meeting, as she broke Amusan’s 100m hurdles world record with a time of 12.09.
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Russell’s time is a record for both the Diamond League and the Weltklasse meeting, while Amusan’s time would have won her gold at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, where she placed third with 12.60, behind Devynne Charlton of Bahamas (12.33) and Megan Simmonds of Jamaica (12.41).
Amusan was faster on Thursday but placed second with a season’s best 12.23, while European champion Nadine Visser finished third (also in a season’s best 12.34), but home favourite and world champion, Ditaji Kambundji was seventh in 12.82; as the real spotlight fell on Russell, who had eyed the record all season long.
Having already run 12.14 in Xiamen, China in May, which was the second-fastest time in history, Russell was simply ruthless on Thursday, as she shaved three hundredths off the 12.12 world best that Amusan had held since her semi-final victory at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, USA.
A report by World Athletics media noted, “Masai Russell sped to a 12.09 (subject to the usual ratification procedure) clocking to win the women’s 100m hurdles. The Olympic champion, who had come close to the world record twice already this year, produced a flawless run over the barriers.
“(While Russell) stopped the clock at 12.09 (0.0m/s), taking 0.03 off the previous world record held by Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan, who was second in a season’s best of 12.23. European champion Nadine Visser was third in a season’s best of 12.34.”
Sports247 adds that Russell’s achievement on Thursday capped a night filled with shattered records in Letzigrund, as her feat came shortly after Alison dos Santos earlier smashed Karsten Warholm’s 400m hurdles world mark, while also crystalising a prophecy she gave in May.
Russell had declared after an equally rapid run in Xiamen that she had no doubts the record would eventually be hers and she predicted back then: “I’ve been saying all year that I’m going to break the world record. I don’t know when it’s going to come, but I keep getting closer and closer.”
