Tobi Amusan, the world 100m hurdles champion and record holder, has revealed that she almost quit athletics before becoming a world champion, glamsquad reports
READ ALSO: Tyson Fury scared of fight with Oleksandr Usyk and making ridiculous demands, promoter claims
Last year, the 25-year-old athlete became Nigeria’s first world champion in athletics when she won the gold medal in the 2022 World Championships 100m hurdles, setting the current world record of 12.12secs in the semi-final and 12.06secs in the final.
She also won gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham before defending her Diamond League Trophy in Zurich in a meet record time of 12.29 seconds.
Tobi Amusan stated that prior to her record-breaking year (2022), she was always fourth, which was exhausting. She believes that even when people believe their lives are over, they can still accomplish great things.
In an interview with Justin Tuckey, the Ogun-born hurdler stated that winning the World Championships 100m hurdles gold medal in Oregon was a watershed moment in her career. She also stated that she had decided to discontinue athletics and return to school.
“That was the moment of ‘did I just do that?’. But, yes, what people saw in 12 seconds was the result of months, years, and an insane amount of training and hard work. Sweat, tears, heartbreaks, and being on the verge of quitting every other year. “Seeing it unfold at that moment, with my coach in the stands, it was just’ma we did it,’ it was crazy,” Amusan said.
“That year, if something didn’t go right… And I felt like it was what pushed me to pursue my Masters because I was worried about what if the season didn’t go as planned. As much as we want to do great things, God approves of whatever we want to do, but it’s more of a case of “I’ve been putting in the work and showing up every year, and it was only the fourth, fourth, so I was just tired,” Amusan added.
“It was a moment of God, you can still do something even when you’re broken and you feel like it’s over, because 2022 was supposed to be like my quit year.