Reigning African Games 100m hurdles champion Tobiloba Amusan will begin her 2021 indoor season in Karslruhe, Germany this evening when she files out in the first heat of the 60m hurdles.
The petite Nigerian, drawn in lane five alongside Finland’s Hurske Reetta, Herman Elvira of Belarus and Schrott Luminosa of Austria is the fastest among a quartet of athletes in heat 1 that have broken eight seconds over the distance.
Interestingly, Amusan ran her fastest 60m hurdles race at the same meeting last year when she scorched to a 7.84 seconds finish to win the race. The result, the second fastest ever run by an African nay Nigerian woman over the distance behind Gloy Alozie’s 7.82 seconds achieved in Madrid in February 1999 catapaulted the University of Texas in El Paso graduate to third on the world list for the year and 39th on the world all-time list.
After runnig inside eight seconds an African record-eqaulling 10 times over the distance last year, Amusan will be hoping to not only go a step further by breaking eight seconds 11 times in a season and the 7.82 seconds African record.
Last Sunday the Nigerian trio of Blessing Okagbare, Divine Oduduru and Chukwuebuka Enekwechi competed in the inaugural American Track League event, a Silver level meeting on the expanded World Athletics Indoor Tour in Fayetteville, USA.
Okagbare ran a new 7.17 seconds personal best to win the race held at the Randal Tyson Indoor Center, Fayetteville while the duo of Oduduru and Enekwechi came second in their respective events.
Oduduru, fifth on the Nigerian indoor list ran 6.65 seconds to come second behind Trayvon Bromell of the USA (6.48).
Enekwechi was the second best thrower in the field on a day USA’s Ryan Crouser sets a new 22.82 world indoor best. The Nigerian threw 20.65 seconds to top the African and Nigerian list for the season. He is second behind Stephen Mozia (21.11m) in the Nigerian all-time list albeit he has also thrown above the 21m mark indoors.