Tobi Amusan’s four-year reign as the women’s 100m hurdles world record holder has come to an end after American Olympic champion Masai Russell produced a stunning 12.09 seconds at the Weltklasse Zürich Diamond League.
Russell, the 2024 Paris Olympic champion, delivered the record-breaking run on Thursday in windless conditions, lowering Amusan’s previous legal world record of 12.12 seconds by three hundredths of a second.
The American pulled away decisively over the final hurdle to become the first woman since Amusan to hold the global record in the event. Amusan finished second in 12.23 seconds, her season’s best, while Dutch hurdler Nadine Visser took third in 12.34, also recording a season best.
Russell’s record was the culmination of a season in which she had steadily closed the gap on Amusan. She first signalled her ambitions in May at the Xiamen Diamond League in China, where she clocked 12.14 seconds.
She also defeated Amusan in that race, with the Nigerian finishing second in 12.28 seconds.
Russell subsequently maintained her momentum, building a strong winning run and repeatedly demonstrating that Amusan’s record was within reach.
The American had previously made her intentions clear, saying after her Xiamen performance that she had spent the year predicting she would break the world record and was getting progressively closer. That prediction became reality in Zurich.
For Amusan, the result brings an extraordinary chapter to an end. The Nigerian established herself as the world’s fastest legal 100m hurdler in July 2022 at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
She clocked 12.12 seconds in the semi-final before going on to win the world title, becoming the first woman to break the 12.2-second barrier in the event under legal wind conditions. Amusan, however, still owns the fastest time ever run over 100m hurdles. She recorded 12.06 seconds in the same 2022 championship semi-final, but a +2.5m/s tailwind exceeded the legal limit, meaning the mark could not be recognised as a world record.
Her 12.12-second performance consequently remained the official world standard until Russell’s breakthrough. Russell’s 12.09 in Zurich now takes that record away from the Nigerian and establishes a new benchmark for the event.
At just 26, the American’s rapid rise suggests that the rivalry at the top of women’s sprint hurdling may be entering a new phase, with Amusan now facing the challenge of reclaiming the record she held for four years.
