Tobi Amusan has been dethroned of her 100m Hurdle title as she returned in sixth position at the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
She lost her title to Jamaica’s Danielle Williams who pulled a shocking upset to win her second world title.
Williams, the 30-year-old, who previously won in Beijing in 2015, timed 12.43 seconds to edge out Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico (12.44sec) with Kendra Harrison of the United States taking bronze (12.46).
Amusan who still holds the 100m hurdles world record finished her race on 12.62 seconds with a poor reaction time of 0.152 seconds.
Amusan became Nigeria’s first world champion and record holder in the semi-finals, setting the current world mark of 12.12 seconds. She ran 12.06 seconds in the Oregon 2022 final, but it didn’t count since it was wind-assisted.
After a promising start to her training for this year’s championship, including a season-best time of 12.34 seconds at a Diamond League meeting in July, she was issued with a provisional suspension by the Athletics Integrity Unit for three whereabouts failures in 12 months.
Relief came two days before Budapest 2023, when a panel of the Disciplinary Tribunal ruled her not guilty of an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) of three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period by majority judgment.
Meanwhile, her failure to win a medal means that Nigeria will depart Budapest without a medal. In an interview with journalists after the game, Amusan said it was quite “a journey getting into the final” despite all she had gone through in the last couple of weeks.
“It has been God, my team and my family,” the 2022 gold winner told reporters.
She thanked all her fans for supporting her through the ups and downs, promising that she will be back stronger.
Amusan hopes to get her “medal” back next year.
“Yeah, it’s a tough one; nobody likes to lose but considering what I have gone through in the past couple of months, I’m so grateful that I came out,” she enthused.
