Tobi Amusan, a world champion and record holder in the 100-meter hurdles, is honored to have been named a contender for the Women’s World Athlete of the Year 2022 honor.
The 25-year-old is one of the 10 female athletes announced by World Athletics as award nominees on Wednesday morning.
In order to win gold at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, Amusan ran a time of 12.12 seconds, shattering the 100-meter hurdles world record.
She followed that up with another gold medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham before defending her title in the Diamond League in Zurich with a new meet record time of 12.29 seconds. Gail Devers, an American legend, held the previous record, which was valid for 22 years.
Amusan, who made history as the first Nigerian in the Diamond League era to win the Diamond Trophy the previous year, also made history at the 2018 Commonwealth Games when she became the first Nigerian track and field athlete to successfully defend a Commonwealth Games title and the first to win gold in two Commonwealth Games.
After defending her championship in Mauritius in June, Amusan is now the African champion and holds the record.
In a social media post, the athlete expressed gratitude for the honor of being nominated for the prestigious prize and her desire to take home the prize.
Amusan posted on her Facebook page: “I’m short of words! Through the grace of God, I have achieved so many firsts by a Nigerian’ and this is yet another one.”
“I’m so honoured to be selected as a World Athlete of the Year nominee and the first Nigerian ever to reach this height. I have twice been named Nigerian Athlete of the Year by Athletic Heat platform, but this is my first international nomination and I want us to win it!”
World Athletics will release five women’s finalists and five men’s finalists after the voting is complete while the winners will be announced via World Athletics’ social media channels early December.
As Amusan competes to become the first Nigerian to win World Athlete of the Year, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria has urged Nigerians to cast a large number of votes for her.
According to Tonobok Okowa, president of the AFN, Amusan is deserving of the title of best nation in the world for this year.
“It’s been a very successful year for Nigerian athletes and Tobi is the icing on the cake of the incredible season we’ve had,” he said
“The fact that Tobi was nominated is a positive development for us as a federation and a nation as no Nigerian athlete has ever made it to this level.
“Now we need to go a step further by playing our part to see that our darling Tobi is crowned the best in the world come December. It’s a three-way voting process that will determine the chances of Tobi and our votes will contribute a quarter of the total votes needed.”
