EUGENE, Ore. — First she set the record. Then she won the medal. Even if the order was awkward, Sunday night at world championships was beautiful for Nigerian hurdler Tobi Amusan, according to AP.
She won the 100-meter hurdles title about 90 minutes after she opened the final session of the championships by breaking the world record in her semifinal heat with a time of 12.12 seconds.
“When I watched the record, I was like ‘Whoa, who did that?’” Amusan said of her reaction upon seeing her time pop up on the scoreboard.
It was a strange sequence of events for the 25-year-old, who finished fourth at the Tokyo Games last year and fourth at the last world championships in 2019, and now has a place in history as a champion, record-holder and main character in a most unusual night.
The mark surpassed the six-year-old record held by American Keni Harrison by .08.
“Unbelievable,” said Switzerland’s Noemi Zbaren, who watched the record while she was waiting for her own semifinal. “I had goosebumps when I saw it in the call room.”
Back on the track for the final, Amusan won the gold medal in an even faster time — 12.06 seconds, but the wind was too strong, so that didn’t go down as yet another record.
For the earlier race, she received a $100,000 bonus for setting the mark at worlds.
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