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| Tobi Amusan |
Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan yet again showed great resilience, coming up against a strong field in Zurich and putting up a brilliant spectacle, going on to successfully defend her 100m Hurdles Diamond League title for the second consecutive season.
Amusan did not just run fast, she took down Gail Devers’ long standing 22-year-old Meeting Record (MR) of 12.39s by one-tenth of a second, going on to set a new MR of 12.29s (-0.3) and convincingly winning her second DL title.
USA’s Tia Jones started very well in the race, and she did well to hang on to 2nd spot in a time of 12.40s, with Jamaica’s Britany Anderson coming in 3rd clocking 12.42s. It was not the kind of outcome, Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn would have hoped for, finishing a distant 4th in 12.49s
For Amusan’s winning time of 12.29s, it is the second fastest legal time she has ever run in her career, further buttressing that her World Record of 12.12s at the World Championships was in no way a fluke.
It crowns what has been a spectacular season for Amusan, scooping a plethora of medals at all the championships she was at in 2022. The win in Zurich was Amusan’s ninth of the season (excluding victories in the heats), laying down the marker as the best 100m Hurdler in the world this season.
Zurich was where Amusan turned the corner in 2021, breaking the then African record of 12.44s and posting a new one of 12.42s. It was not surprising that she returned to the Swiss city, looking to leave another mark, and even had the same hairstyle as she had last year, which ended up being a good omen for her.
Flanked by Camacho-Quinn to her right, Amusan got a decent start more than the former, and although Tia Jones had bolted away, it was the Nigerian who came barreling and finishing like a train to claim the win.
Amusan is now the first Nigerian athlete to win two Diamond League trophies, in fact she was the first to win it, and her recent conquest further underlines how far her stock has risen, and what a world beater she has evolved into.
The Nigerian ran three of the five fastest times in the 100m Hurdles this season, and as her season wound down in Zurich, she would look back and revel in what she was able to achieve…the first Nigerian World champion and World Record holder. All her hard work finally paid off.
~Courtesy, Making of Champions
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