Tobi Amusan breaks 25-year African 60m hurdles record

Tobi Amusan has set an African women’s indoor record in 60-meter hurdles after she dipped 7.77 seconds at the Astana Indoor Meet, Kazakhstan.

The 26-year-old blitzed across the indoor circuit on Saturday to retire the 7.82-second record set by Gloria Alozie in Madrid, Spain, in 1999.

Amusan finished first in the event’s final ahead of Nia Ali of the US and Ireland’s Sarah Lavin, who finished second and third, respectively.

The performance was Nigeria’s opening race of the new athletics season following the bitter-sweet end of her 2023 campaign.

During the lead-up to the 2023 World Athletics Championships, she was provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unity (AIU) for allegedly “missing three tests in 12 months”.

Her participation in the world championship was in jeopardy until she was cleared of the charge three days before the competition.

Amusan failed to defend her world title in Budapest after she finished sixth in the final at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest, Hungary.

She, however, emerged from the controversy to win her third consecutive Diamond League trophy.

Amusan, who broke the world 100-meter hurdles in 2022, will hope for her first-ever Olympic medal when the games commence in Paris in June.