On Sunday 24 July at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22, the evening’s action got under way with perhaps one of the biggest shocks of the event.
Oluwatobiloba ‘Tobi’ Amusan sped to a world record of 12.12 (+0.9m/s) in the first semifinal of the women’s 100m hurdles, stunning her fellow competitors, the thousands of spectators in the stadium, and millions of fans watching on TV at home.
The 25-year-old Nigerian duly went on to win the final with a wind-aided 12.06 (+2.5m/s) – not allowable for record purposes because of the following wind – to claim her first World Championships gold.
“The goal was to come out and to win this gold. I just did it,” said Amusan after the race. “Honestly, I believe in my abilities, but I was not expecting a world record at these championships.”
“I was the ‘almost girl’. I got fourth, fourth, fourth. Now I finally did it,” she added.
Who’s Oluwatobiloba Amusan?
Born: 23 April 1997.
Coach: Lacena Golding-Clarke
Tobi Amusan only got into hurdling through a quirk of fate.
Born in the town of Ijebu Ode in the western Nigerian state of Ogun, Amusan started out in athletics as a sprinter and long jumper. At the age of 13, she turned up to compete in a local athletics meeting, only to find that just one event remained on the programme: the hurdles.
Amusan’s coach encouraged her to enter. She ended up winning the race and the rest, as they say, is history.
She continued competing in sprints and long jump but managed to squeeze in one hurdles session a week. She put cones and tires on the track to jump over because there were no hurdles in her town.
In 2013 she took 200m silver at the African U18 Championships and reached the semifinals in that event at the World U18 Championships.
When she was replaced as a member of Nigeria’s 4x100m squad at the trials for the 2014 African Youth Games, she figured she had nothing to lose and entered the hurdles. She won that and went on to earn silver at the African Youth Games in Botswana.
Then followed a trip to Ethiopia in 2015, where she won African U20 gold, followed by a breakthrough victory at the African Games in Brazzaville, Congo. Although she would be an U20 athlete for another full season, Amusan beat the best senior athletes on the continent.
“It was one of the biggest milestones of my career,” she said. “Winning that championship set me up for who I am today.”
There was no looking back; she was now a full-time hurdler.
In 2016, Amusan received a scholarship to attend the University of Texas, El Paso, (UTEP) where hard training brought her personal best down from 13.10 to 12.83. The latter was faster than the existing world U20 record at the time, though Amusan’s mark could not be ratified as a record.
“Honestly, I believe in my abilities, but I was not expecting a world record at these championships…I was the ‘almost girl’. I got fourth, fourth, fourth. Now I finally did it.”
Tobi Amusan
At UTEP, she worked with new coach Lacena Golding-Clarke, a three-time Olympian from Jamacia and the 2002 Commonwealth Games 100m hurdles champion.
There were setbacks along the way, of course. At the U20 world championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland in 2016, Amusan struggled with her technique and finished in fifth place. She was so devastated that she thought about quitting the sport.
But she regrouped and, after reaching the semifinals at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Amusan went unbeaten in the 2017 outdoor US collegiate season and won the NCAA title in a PB of 12.57.
She went into the 2017 World Championships in London as the season’s fourth-fastest hurdler, but cramped up in the cold conditions and failed to make the final.
Tobi Amusan turned pro at the end of that year and went on to win gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, at the age of 20. She also triumphed at the African Championships later that year.
In 2019, she finished just 0.02 shy of bronze at the World Championships in Doha. Last year, she came 0.05 from a medal at the delayed Tokyo Games.
Motivated by those near-misses, Amusan has attacked the 2022 season with renewed focus. From May onwards, she has finished in the top two in all of her races on the international circuit.
She successfully defended her African title with a wind-assisted 12.57 and then broke her own African record when winning at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Paris with 12.41.
When she improved that record in her heat at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22, it hinted that greater things could come in the following rounds.
Even so, her world record run of 12.12 secs in the semifinals – and her wind-assisted 12.06 secs to take gold in the final – both came as a surprise to everyone, Amusan included.
What are the Stats
Amusan’s progression
2014: 13.89
2015: 13.11
2016: 12.83
2017: 12.57
2018: 12.68
2019: 12.48
2021: 12.42
2022: 12.12
World 100m hurdles all-time top 10
12.12 Tobi Amusan (NGR) Eugene 2022
12.20 Kendra Harrison (USA) London 2016
12.21 Yordanka Donkova (BUL) Stara Zagora 1988
12.25 Ginka Zagorcheva (BUL) Drama 1987
12.26 Lyudmila Zarozhilenko (RUS) Seville 1992
12.26 Brianna McNeal (USA) Des Moines 2013
12.26 Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (PUR) Tokyo 2021
12.28 Sally Pearson (AUS) Daegu 2011
12.31 Britany Anderson (JAM) Eugene 2022
12.32 Danielle Williams (JAM) London 2019
World 100m hurdles record progression
12.59 Anneliese Ehrhardt (GDR) Munich 1972
12.3h Anneliese Ehrhardt (GDR) Dresden 1973
12.48 Grazyna Rabsztyn (POL) Furth 1978
12.36 Grazyna Rabsztyn (POL) Warsaw 1980
12.35 Yordanka Donkova (BUL) Cologne 1986
12.29 Yordanka Donkova (BUL) Cologne 1986
12.26 Yordanka Donkova (BUL) Ljubljana 1986
12.25 Ginka Zagorcheva (BUL) Drama 1987
12.21 Yordanka Donkova (BUL) Stara Zagora 1988
12.20 Kendra Harrison (USA) London 2016
12.12 Tobi Amusan (NGR) Eugene 2022
(With additional info from World Athletics)
