Tobi Amusan’s Difficult, but Triumphant Journey to the Paris Olympics
The 27-year-old World Athletics champion spent the past year weathering an anti-doping inquiry. Now, her eyes are set on the Olympics.
Tobi Amusan of Nigeria reacts after winning the Women's 100m Hurdles during the 2023 Prefontaine Classic and Wanda Diamond League Final at Hayward Field on September 17, 2023 in Eugene, Oregon.
Much of Tobi Amusan’s journey has been the unending work of fulfilling a promise she made to herself. In 2016, while still fresh in college and trying to find her lane as an athlete, she wrote on her X (formerly Twitter) account, “Unknown now, but soon I will be UNFORGETTABLE. I will persist until I SUCCEED.”
“I was just a little girl who just got a scholarship to the United States to study human kinetics. I met a lot of top athletes in the process of traveling around and competing and the vibe I was getting was ‘Who is this Black one from Africa?’ So, I felt like you all don’t know me now. Don’t worry about it,” she said to Nigerian Info FM about why she sent out that post.
Six years after making that promise to herself, Amusan won the World Athletics Championships in the 100m hurdles which brought a flush of interest and attention to her, despite nabbing gold in several tournaments since 2018. Amusan, now a world record holder and a three-time Diamond League winner, is a huge source of immense pride and inspiration for her country, Nigeria.
And in the lead-up to the Olympics, Amusan is also bringing Nigerians a new fighting chance — one the country hasn’t had in quite some time. She is the current world record holder in the women's 100m hurdles, running a time of 12.12 seconds in the semifinals of the 2022 World Athletic Championships. More recently, she won the 100m hurdles at the Jamaica Athletics Invitational with a time of 12.40 seconds, taking the lead over American track star Christina Clemons.
But the road here was anything but smooth. Despite her incredible milestones, Amusan’s journey to the Olympics was nearly thwarted by a damning doping inquiry. In July 2023, Amusan was charged for missing three anti-doping tests in the span of a year.
“Today the Athletics Integrity Unit (AlU) has charged me with an alleged rule violation for having three missed tests in 12 months. I intend to fight this charge and will have my case decided by a tribunal of three arbitrators before the start of next month's World Championships,” she took to her Instagram to write. Adding that, “I am a CLEAN ATHLETE, and I am regularly; (maybe more than the usual) tested by the AIU — I was tested within days of my third ‘missed test.’ I have FAITH that this will be resolved in my favor and that I will be competing at the World Championships in August. In the meantime, I ask that the media respect my privacy while I address these allegations in my upcoming arbitration.”
Although the Disciplinary Tribunal cleared her of the charges, World Athletics and the World Anti-Doping Agency took to the Court of Arbitration for Sports to appeal the decision.
“When there is anything doping [related], whether it’s a rumor, or a ban, it always comes with a sort of stigma and damage to your reputation," Ifreke Inyang, a sportswriter and editor who extensively covered the doping inquiry tells OkayAfrica. "Even if you’ve been proven to be clean, it always follows you like an albatross. I think she dealt with it very well and she has run some of her best races."
In late June however, the tribunal dismissed the appeals and cleared her to run at the 2024 Paris Olympics. When reached for comments on the subject, the world record holder declined, saying her focus is now solely on training for, and winning at the Olympics.
This inscrutable sense of self has always been a part of her, though. “I think she [Amusan] is a very self-aware person, very confident and determined,” Inyang, the sports writer says. “You can see it in her eyes that she knows what she wants and what we don't talk about enough with [Amusan] is she literally came from nowhere and just burst onto the scene. This means that there was nothing that was going to hold her back including the economic climate of the country because all the trials that used to happen across the country had begun to fade away. But somehow, she decided to grab her life in her hands and make something out of it.”
As the 2024 Olympics approaches, Nigeria can sit a little taller, knowing they have a fighting chance. “I think Amusan will make gold, silver or bronze,” Inyang posits. “I wouldn’t put it past her to get gold. [Either way], she is going to be on the platform. Expect to see [her] when the medals are handed out at the Olympics.”