World Leader in the 100m Hurdles, Tobi Amusan easily sailed through the heats of her event on Day 4 of the IAAF World Junior Championships, clocking a time of 13.26s to win Heat 6 ahead of Japan’s Yuri Okubo (13.73s) and Yanni Wu (13.74s) of China.
The Nigerian hurdler set a Personal Best (PB) of 12.83s earlier this season, and will be hoping to lower her time in a bid to add the World Junior title to the GOLD medals she claimed at the African Junior Championships and African Games last year.
Her stiffest competitor will be USA’s Tia Jones who raced to the fastest time overall of 13.04s to take the lead in Heat 2. The 16-year old also set a PB that is just 0.01s shy of Amusan’s lifetime best (12.84s) to equal the World Junior Record (WJR) set by Cuba’s Aliuska López in 1987.
The time is also the World Youth Record and US High School National Record, making her the third US high schooler to break 13s. Another athlete to watch out for is Alexis Duncan, also of the US, who clocked the second fastest time overall of 13.11s to win Heat 5. She is also the current US National Junior Champion in the event.
Elvira Herman of Belarus returned a time of 13.13s to take the victory in Heat 4, while Laura Valette of France is certainly no pushover, after winning Heat 3 in 13.25s. Great Britain’s pair of Mollie Courtney and Alicia Barrett was impressive, setting PBs of 13.28s and 13.35s to place 2nd in their respective heats.
