With the green-white-green vest on her back and hope of 216 million people on her shoulders, Tobi Amusan, 24, ran a phenomenal record-time at the World Athletics Championships, Oregon 2022. The world didn’t see her coming!
On November 8, 2016, came an innocuous tweet: “Unknown now,” Tobi Amusan wrote, “but I will be unforgettable.” The message of self-belief, typical of athletes, earned few likes on the Twitter page. Majority ignored it as a routine. “I will persist until I succeed,” Amusan vouched, as she left her University of Texas room to begin the day’s drill. Barely six years after, the tweet turned prophetic and started trending when Amusan, representing Nigeria, took to the global stage to run the fastest time in 100m hurdle ever.
Amusan, the reigning African and Commonwealth champion, instantly became world famous not only for winning the 100m hurdle World Athletics Championships’ gold at Oregon, United States, but also shattering the World Record in one night! She has since been “unforgettable!”. She broke the world-record by running 12.12s at the event’s semifinal and sprinted 12.06s (wind assisted) in the frenetic final. Hers is indeed a story of hard work, spanning several years, just for one moment of perfection and history.
Starting was a struggle
They say the road to success is long and paved with obstacles — a hurdle, if you may — and the unrelenting must be ready for adversity. Oluwatobiloba Ayomide Amusan is not an exception to that rule. She was born on April 23, 1997, in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, by two schoolteachers. Both parents were athletes in their heydays. Her father was initially opposed to her becoming an athlete. At a point, Amusan did say, he torched her training gear to dissuade her interests, and to shift focus on other, and perhaps, ‘safer’ career paths. But thankfully she had a supportive mother who believed in her dreams and would cover up for her while she trained. Having played football himself, and his wife, also an athlete, the father understood the challenges of pursuing a career in sports, and the financial strain it could cause to the family’s income.
Amusan’s first sporting interest was football, but after observing her on the pitch during training, her coach at the time advised that she was better off with track and field. Under Ayodele Solaja, her first coach, she trained in 100m races, relays and long jumps. She met Coach Solomon Aliyu between 2013 and 2014 at the national camp in Sapele, in preparation for the African Youth Games championships. Aliyu revealed how her discipline and dedication sprung her from a 14.60s speed at the beginning, to a 13.70s at the end of the training period. Aliyu said Amusan’s progression was due largely to her commitment, dedication, discipline and focus. He also talked about the setbacks she encountered before her big break in 2015.
First, for missing out then, as a junior athlete due to a visa issuance delay, which prevented Amusan from competing at the World Junior Athletics Championships, ironically, in Oregon, and second, for being overlooked by officials because she was inexperienced. Incidentally, it was that same venue, where she was supposed to launch her athletics career as a junior international that she stunned the athletics world in 2022. Her ordeal in the Port Harcourt camp before the 2015 All Africa Games came from coaches. Despite coming second in the national trials with 13.60s behind Lindsay Lindley, the 100m hurdler from the USA, the coaches didn’t want to allow her run because they felt Lindley had better medal chances with a 12.90s time to her credit. Coach Aliyu said: “I told them my own gold medal prospect was Tobi. They were surprised and asked why would I say an athlete with 13.60s had better chances of winning a gold medal than one with a 12.90s. I told them my assessment was based on my encounters with both athletes. I insisted, by my own assessment, it would be Tobi for gold at the All African Games based on her progression. That was how her name was added as second hurdler,” Aliyu recalled.
“She was almost dropped from the team that went to the All Africa Games in Congo but thank God she wasn’t dropped. She won gold with 13.15s. Lindsey (the preferred first choice) placed third. “Amusan was also frustrated by officials in the relays as well. As good as she was in the relays, she was always overlooked. On a couple of occasions, she complained that team coaches refused to feature her in the relay team and she didn’t like what they were doing. I would tell her to be patient,” Aliyu said.
Making the world her stage
Tobi began her journey to international stardom when she emerged silver medalist at the 2013 African Youth Championships in Warri, Delta State. She missed out in the relay team that year but went on to win a bronze in the long jump instead. Amusan said when she was replaced as a member of Nigeria’s 4x100m relay squad at the trials for the African Youth Games, she figured she had nothing to lose and entered the hurdles. It proved to be a smart decision. She went on to claim gold in the 100 metres hurdles at the 2015 African Junior Athletics Championships in Addis Ababa. In 2015, while making her All-Africa Games debut as an 18-year-old, she won the gold medal in the 100 metres hurdles.
At the African Games in Brazzaville, Congo the following year after the African Youth Games, she won a gold medal with a record time of 13.11s, a win that became pivotal to her athletic ascension, and earned her a scholarship to study in the USA. “It was one of the biggest milestones of my career; winning that championship set me up for who I am today,” Amusan said. It was still not all smooth sailing for Amusan as she had other down moments even with local, regional and budding international success and recognition. One of such was at the World Athletics U18 Championships in Donetsk, Ukraine, where she was disqualified for lane infringement during the 200m semi-finals. But instead of being shattered by the incident, she allowed it to toughen her.
As a student at El Paso, Amusan ran for the university, accomplishing great feats in 2016 and 2017. At the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, World Champion, Danielle Williams, seemed to be the favourite to take the title in the absence of Sally Pearson. In the final, however, Amusan moved ahead of her competitors and won the race by a clear metre ahead of Williams.
Year 2018 was a great year for Tobi, as she won gold in the 100m hurdles, a bronze medal in the 4x100m relay and won the African Championships in Nigeria that same year. Along came some self-doubts too. Competing at the 2019 World Championship in Doha, she finished fourth, and then another close fourth-place again at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, though with lessons learnt. Amusan opened her 2022 season by winning the 2022 Diamond League event in Paris, where she set an African record with a time of 12.41s. She won gold in the 100m hurdles at the 2022 African Championships in Mauritius, defending her title successfully. She also competed in the women’s 4×100m and won gold.
Earlier this year, she competed in a Diamond League meet, finishing second with a time of 12.60s. After winning the World Championship in Doha, she said, “I was the ‘almost girl’, I got fourth, fourth, fourth. Now I finally did it.” In June 2022, in Benin, at the All Nigeria Championships, which were the qualifiers for the World and the Commonwealth Games, Amusan broke the African record. It was a sneak preview of what was to come in Oregon.
The sky is the starting point
Now a world champion, a Diamond League winner, a Commonwealth Games winner, top eight at the Olympic Games and in contention for the World Female Athlete of the Year 2022, her victories are a testament that hard work, discipline, and commitment pay off. Her world record-smashing accomplishment is a big achievement for self and country.
Amusan became the first African to win a gold medal at the World Athletic Championship in the women’s 100m hurdle. On September 15, 2022, she was honoured, alongside other athletes and conferred the Order of the Niger (OON) by President Muhammadu Buhari. Her win rekindles the dwindling faith of Nigerians that perhaps, there is hope for the country, and assures young people that racing to the top is still attainable.
