American track legend Michael Johnson has been accused of ‘black racism’ after questioning whether Nigerian sprinter Tobi Amusan’s 12.12 seconds world record was valid.
The 100-meter hurdler smashed Kendra Harrison’s 2016 world record by 0.08 seconds at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon Sunday.
BBC pundit Johnson, who claimed four Olympic golds and eight World Championship golds in a stellar track career, was sceptical of the times clocked by Amusan and others in series of tweets on Social Media platform Twitter.
“I don’t believe 100h times are correct,” the 1996 Olympic 200m and 400m gold medalist queried. “World record broken by .08! 12 PBs set. 5 National records set. And Cindy Sember quote after her PB/NR ‘I thoroughly I was running slow!’ All athletes looked shocked.”
“Heat 2 we were first shown winning time of 12.53. Few seconds later it shows 12.43. Rounding down by .01 is normal. .10 is not.” he added.
Amusan became world champion in an even faster time later in the day at Hayward Field but the time did not count toward records due to a hefty tailwind.
Johnson, however, branded the backlash he received as ‘unacceptable’ and pointed out that he did not only question Amusan’s time.
He wrote later on his Twitter account: “The level of dumbassery coming across my feed right now is truly staggering!
“As a commentator my job is to comment. In questioning the times of 28 athletes (not 1 athlete) by wondering if the timing system malfunctioned.
“I was attacked, accused of racism, and of questioning the talent of an athlete I respect and predicted to win. Unacceptable. I move on.”