Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan recorded her fastest 100 metres time of the season on Sunday with an 11.18 seconds finish at the Racers Grand Prix, a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meeting, in Kingston, Jamaica
Amusan placed fourth in the highly competitive women’s sprint final in front of 15,000 spectators that saw the top four athletes set season-best marks, with the top two also meeting the qualification standard for the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo.
Running in lane two and representing Racers Track Club, Amusan reacted to the gun in 0.198 seconds and crossed the line behind three Jamaicans and an American, but showed marked improvement from her previous outings this year.
The 11.18 seconds performance reduced tenth of a second off her season’s best of 11.28 seconds set at the Velocity Festival in March.
This was Amusan’s second 100 metres flat race of the season and third in the last 14 months, as she continues her gradual transition into sprinting from her specialist 100 metres hurdles event.
The race was won by Jamaica’s Tina Clayton, who clocked 10.98 seconds from lane three with a reaction time of 0.179 seconds.
Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Clayton said her focus is to maintain consistency.
Clayton was closely followed by Jacious Sears of the United States, who ran from lane four and recorded an 11.04 seconds finish, also inside the World Championship qualifying standard. Sears had the quickest reaction time in the field, leaving the blocks at 0.158 seconds
Alana Garren Reid, another young Jamaican prospect born in 2005, took third place with 11.16 seconds from lane one, ahead of Amusan, who held her own against the younger sprinters despite entering the event primarily as a hurdler.
Tia Clayton, the twin sister of the race winner, completed the top five with a time of 11.24 seconds having started in lane five with a reaction time of 0.187 seconds
Amusan’s steady improvement since her move to Jamaica in November 2024 to train under Glen Mills at Racers Track Club is beginning to bear fruit with her switch from the United States reportedly motivated by a desire to expand her sprinting range and better integrate speed into her hurdling technique.
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She opened her sprint campaign with a modest 11.41seconds in the heats of the Velocity Fest before going on to clock 11.28 seconds in the final. At the Tom Jones Memorial in Gainesville, Florida, last April, she ran 11.26 seconds for third place. Saturday’s 11.18 seconds finish now stands as her best since setting a personal best of 11.10 seconds in 2023 on the same Florida track.
Olympic silver medallist Kishane Thompson produced an emphatic run to win the men’s 100 metres in 9.88 seconds ahead of his compatriot Oblique Seville , who finished with a flourish to clinch second place in a season’s best of 9.97 seconds with South African pair of Gift Leotlela and world U-20 champion Bayanda Walaza finishing third and fourth, respectively.
In the men’s 110 metres hurdles, Olympic bronze medallist Rasheed Broadbell defeated the red-hot US athlete Trey Cunningham in a tight contest – 13.06 to 13.08 It was Broadbell’s third win against Cunningham in five finals.
USA’s Alia Armstrong clocked 12.54 seconds to equal the meeting record in the women’s 100 meters hurdles. Following in Armstrong’s wake was world indoor champion Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas in a season’s best of 12.65 seconds
World champion Shericka Jackson won the women’s 200 metres in a season’s best of 22.53 seconds
The men’s 200 metres lived up to its billing as one of the most highly anticipated events on the night, with Jamaican champion Bryan Levell bursting the tape at 19.79seconds
(Editor: Paul Akhagbemhe)
