BREAKING: America’s Masai Russell shatters Tobi Amusan’s World Record in 100m Hurdles

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

American Olympic champion Masai Russell has ended Nigerian sprint hurdler Tobi Amusan’s four-year reign as the world record holder in the women’s 100m hurdles after producing a stunning 12.09 seconds at the Weltklasse Zürich Diamond League.

Russell’s breathtaking performance on Thursday lowered Amusan’s 12.12-second world record, set at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, by three hundredths of a second.

The American’s run came with no wind, making the mark fully legal and establishing her as the new world record holder.

The 26-year-old, who won Olympic gold in Paris in 2024, delivered the decisive surge over the final hurdle to pull away from Amusan and cross the line in 12.09 seconds.

Amusan finished second in 12.23 seconds, recording a season’s best in a race that saw the Nigerian surrender a world record she had held since July 2022. Dutch athlete Nadine Visser was third in 12.34 seconds, also a season best.

Russell’s breakthrough was the culmination of a remarkable progression throughout the season. In May, she had already moved within touching distance of Amusan’s record when she clocked 12.14 seconds at the Xiamen Diamond League in China, then the second-fastest performance in history.

That Xiamen performance was particularly significant because Russell defeated Amusan head-to-head, with the Nigerian finishing second in 12.28 seconds. Russell subsequently continued to dominate the event, building a formidable winning streak as she closed in on the world record.

Russell had made no secret of her ambition to take the record from Amusan. After her 12.14 run in Xiamen, she said she had been saying all year that she would break the world record and that she was getting progressively closer.

Her prediction finally became reality in Zurich.

The new record also represents another milestone in Russell’s rapid rise to the top of women’s sprint hurdling. Before Thursday’s race, she already occupied the second position on the all-time list with her 12.14 performance, while her previous 12.17 mark had established her as one of the fastest women ever over the barriers.

For Amusan, the Zurich result marks the end of a remarkable period at the summit of the event. The Nigerian stunned the athletics world in Eugene in 2022 when she ran 12.12 seconds in the semi-final, becoming the first woman to break the 12.2-second barrier in the 100m hurdles under legal conditions.

Amusan went on to win the world title that same night, cementing her place among Nigeria’s greatest track and field athletes.

Interestingly, Amusan remains the fastest woman ever over the distance when all performances are considered. She ran 12.06 seconds in the 2022 World Championships semi-final, but the performance was assisted by a +2.5m/s tailwind and therefore could not count as a world record. Her legal 12.12 remains the previous global standard.

Russell’s 12.09, by contrast, came in windless conditions, giving the American a new benchmark that could now reshape the event’s competitive landscape.