Tobi Amusan of Nigeria was the runner-up in the women’s 100m hurdles at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest yesterday.
Amusan recorded 12.34 seconds to win the silver medal, finishing behind United States Olympic champion Masai Russell who crossed in 12.22 seconds to take home the crown, Channels TV reports.
Nadine Visser of the Netherlands was third in 12.39 seconds.
Amusan, the previous world record holder, could not retake the top spot from Russell, who smashed her world record with a time of 12.09 seconds at the Zurich Diamond League in August.
Russell came to Budapest as the favourite for the final following her record-breaking run in Zurich and maintained her great 2026 season with another win.
The American kept up her chase for an un-beaten year, adding the Ultimate Championship crown to her Diamond League Final victory in Brussels last week.
Amusan said she had to dig deep throughout the race and after the race stated she was glad she did. She came to the championship with a mission to give it everything she had after what she called a difficult phase throughout the season.
“First, God is good and,” Amusan remarked.
“What was a great season, you know, started out great, I had some pinching here and there in between. You know, I’m not a machine. You know, at some point the body did just shut down.”
The hurdler claimed she gradually rebuilt her momentum, taking each race as it came, before arriving in Budapest with a determined mindset.
My thinking going to the line coming into this championship was, ‘We die here.’ “I just kept telling myself I got to go all out,” she added.
Amusan said she was determined to give her all in the marathon, no matter the outcome.
“All I knew was, look, I did it. That was all I knew. And the moment I saw second place I was like, you know, I can’t complain. “God is good,” she said.
Her silver medal comes after a tough few weeks for the former world record holder. Amusan was third at the Commonwealth Games and then had her 100m hurdles world record broken by Russell before finishing fourth in the Diamond League Final.
She said it was a tough emotional period but acknowledged her family, mentor, coach and partner for helping her get her confidence back.
To be honest. “It was very rough,” Amusan remarked.
I mean, to my family, to my mentor, to my coach, to my partner. That put the life back in me.”
She says that words of support from people around her allowed her to put the disappointments behind her and focus on the race in Budapest.
“This morning it was about leaving the past behind you and just go for it. Those few lines I got here and there led me to this finish line today’, she remarked.
Amusan said her runner-up finish, together with her Commonwealth medal, was a good answer to the hardships she had endured.
“It’s a statement with the Commonwealth medal,” she remarked.
The women’s 100m hurdles is getting tougher, Amusan said, warning that the fight among the top hurdlers will be more fierce as the event is getting more competitive.
“I’d be the sleeping lion, honestly, in that situation,” she added.
‘The women’s hurdles I think is just getting more scary every damn year. I don’t know what will happen next year.” “But it is going to be bloody.”
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