Tobi Amusan

Tobi Amusan in our words

Oluwatobiloba Amusan is a young Nigerian female track and field sprinter born on 23 April 1997 in Ijebu Ode, Ogun State. She specializes mainly in 100m, 200m, and 100m hurdles and has won many laurels in track and field for Nigeria in championship tournaments.

She created a record in her university (UTEP) after finishing the 100m hurdles race in about 12.63 seconds at the UTEP Springtime Invitational. She competed at the 2013 African Youth Championships in Warri winning a silver medal at the competition.

She is a gold medalist in the 100m hurdles event at the 2015 African Junior Athletics Championships held in Addis Ababa. That same year, she also won a gold medal in the 100m hurdles event at the 2015 All-Africa Games.

In the year 2016, Amusan participated at the 2016 World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz although she did not make it to the top; she placed fifth in the competition. This young talent won gold and bronze medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games held at Gold Coast Australia competing in the finals of the women’s 100m hurdles event and 4 x 100m relay respectively.

World champion and world record holder

The summer of 2022 made Amusan a legend. At the World Championships in Eugene, she ran 12.12 in the semi-final to break the world record, then won the final in 12.06, a time not ratified as a record because of the tailwind. She became Nigeria’s first world champion in athletics, and weeks later retained her Commonwealth title in Birmingham and won a second Diamond League trophy.

Since 2023

Amusan won a third Diamond League title in 2023, the year she was cleared of a missed-tests charge, a decision later upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. She took world silver in Tokyo in 2025 and, in 2026, won the African title in Accra and bronze at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. On 27 August 2026 in Zürich she ran 12.23 as Masai Russell of the USA lowered her world record to 12.09. Her 12.12 remains the Nigerian and African record.

Major results