Former 100m Hurdles World Champion Jamaican Danielle Williams has described Tobi Amusan World Record and Gold medal at the 2022 World Athletics Championship in Oregon (USA) as amazing, adding victory for the Nigerian after near past misses showed her stellar stuff.
Williams who clocked 12:44 secs came a distant sixth as Amusan ran the race of her life finishing with an incredible 12: 06 secs to finish in pole position in the final on Sunday.
Amusan had obliterated the world record in an astonishing semi-final where she clocked 12.12sec but her winning 12.06sec is not recognised as a world record due to a strong wind following win of 2.5 metres per second.
“If I don’t make the finals, I knew I gave the best I have today and I’m satisfied with that,” the 29-year-old Williams who won bronze at the last World Championships at Doha 2019, said. “Tobi literally spoke it into existence, just last night I was on Instagram and adidas hospital had a wall that was ‘only the best for the athletes’.
“And it had a sign and in Chinese page, I saw a little snippet of what Tobi wrote and it said ‘incoming world record holder’ and to see it today, I’m proud of Tobi; definition of speaking things into existence.”
Williams who has personal bests of 12.32 seconds in the 100mH (2019) , added Amusan’s win at Oregon22 is inspirational after her past failures at the global level.
“Tobi is one of my closest friend, she is one of the people I talk to most,” she said.“ It’s inspirational to see her, I know what Tobi has gone through, finishing fourth twice is not easy, it is not an easy position, to see her come here and do this right now is amazing.”