TOBI Amusan, Nigeria’s major medal hope in the women’s 100m hurdles in particular and the Paris Olympics in general, was unable to secure a spot in the final of the event.
Despite being the world record holder, Amusan clocked a time of 12.55 seconds, finishing third in her heat and ninth overall in the semi-finals.
The 27-year-old athlete had been in impressive form leading up to the Olympics, recording a season’s best and world-leading time of 12.40 seconds (0.9) at the Jamaican Athletics Invitational in Kingston in May.
Tobi, though, surprisingly failed to automatically qualify and was initially among the fastest losers but her spot was denied as Jamaica’s Ackera Nugent and France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela clocked better times.
Meanwhile, defending champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico blazed through the 100-metre hurdles semi-final on Friday, though the United States”Alaysha Johnson looked to be a threat with the fastest time of the morning.
Camacho-Quinn won her heat in 12.35 seconds with American Masai Russell, who has the world’s fastest time this year, right behind her.
The U.S. had a strong showing with both Johnson (12.34) and Grace Stark (12.39) winning their heats to make three going through to the final, with three of the four fastest times.
“I honestly felt like this series wasn’t going to be as competitive as the series we had at USA so I just kept telling myself, the hard part is really over, now it’s just about being secure in yourself and executing,” Johnson said.
The Bahamas’ Devynne Charlton, who finished fourth at world championships last year, looked strong, leaving the field behind to finish second in her heat behind Stark.
“The race played out pretty much how I thought it would, that I would have a pretty good start and everybody else would be chasing me, so the plan was just to stay calm and let the race come to me and not try to press it,” Charlton said.
The Netherlands’ Nadine Visser followed Johnson well clear of the challengers to book her place in the final at her third Olympics.
Samba-Mayela, powered to a 12.52 finish by the Stade de France crowd’s roars, is a strong medal contender for the hosts, having run the third-fastest time of the year globally in June.
The 23-year-old had been forced to pull out of the event in Tokyo due to a hamstring injury during warm-up.
The first two in each heat and the next two fastest advanced to the final set for Saturday at 7:35 p.m.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s 4x400m team has now been disqualified for lane infringement and will not participate in the Men’s 4x400m final.
The referee reported a lane violation in the semi-final [TR17.2.3].
South Africa qualified in the place of Nigeria.
The Team Nigeria quartet of Ifeanyi Ojeli, Dubem Amene, Ezekiel Nathaniel and Chidi Okezie had finished second in their 4x400m semi-final to book a place in the final before they were thrown out.
They ran a season’s best of 2:59.81 seconds, finishing only behind France.
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