Amusan breaks 25-year African indoor record in 60m hurdles

Nigerian sprinter, Tobi Amusan, has set a new African women’s 60-metre hurdles indoor record with a time of 7.77 seconds.

The performance came at the Astana Indoor Meet in Kazakhstan on Saturday.

Amusan shattered fellow Nigerian, Gloria Alozie’s longstanding continental mark of 7.82 seconds set in 1999.

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The 26-year-old stormed to victory in the 60m hurdles final ahead of American Nia Ali and Ireland’s Sarah Lavin.

It was Nigeria’s opening race of the 2023 athletic season after Amusan’s rollercoaster finish last year. She was provisionally suspended before the World Championships for missed drug tests but later cleared.

Amusan then failed to defend her 100m hurdles world title, finishing sixth in Budapest. But she the year on a high by winning her third consecutive Diamond League trophy.

The new 60m hurdles record continues Amusan’s rise as a trailblazer for African female sprint hurdlers.

In 2022, she became the first Nigerian to win a World Athletics Championship gold. She also broke the women’s 100m hurdles world record enroute to that triumph.

World Athletics/MTO