Tobi Amusan makes history, becomes Nigeria’s first-ever world champion

Tobi Amusan became the first Nigerian to claim a World Athletics Championship gold medal as she breezed to gold in the women’s 100m Hurdles event, setting a new world record in the process.

Just over an hour after she broke Kendra Harrison’s six-year-old world record with a time of 12.12 seconds in the semifinal of the women’s 100m hurdles, Tobi Amusan thought she broke her own world record in what was unarguably the greatest individual performance in women’s track and field.

Amusan was up against bitter rivals Brittany Anderson and Jasmine Camacho-Quinn in the final as she sought glory on the global stage for the first time in her career. The hurdler finished the race in 12.06 seconds but due to the excessive wind speed of 2.5m/s, her time does not stand as a new world record. This, however, did not stop her from claiming gold in the event after narrowly missing out on bronze at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. She also became Nigeria’s first-ever gold medalist at the World Athletics Championship.

Not to be outdone, Ese Brume claimed silver medal in the women’s long jump with a leap of 7.02m as Nigeria left its best for the last at the World Athletics Championship. The Olympic bronze medalist was the first to pass the 7.00m mark with her third leap, only for Germany’s Malaika Mihambo to overtake her with a huge leap of 7.12m to claim gold in the event. Ruth Usoro finished in 11th place with a leap of 6.52m.

The Nigerian athletes will now travel to the United Kingdom where they will look to build on this performance at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.