Tobi Amusan after winning the 100m hurdles (© AFP / Getty Images)
At two different meetings on opposite sides of the world, Nigerian sprint hurdler Tobi Amusan and Polish shot putter Konrad Bukowiecki broke continental U20 records in their respective events.
Amusan, a student at the University of Texas at El Paso, was a convincing winner of the 100m hurdles on her home track at the UTEP Invitational on Saturday (30). Aided by El Paso’s altitude and a following breeze of 0.4m/s, the 19-year-old produced the first sub-13-second run of her career to win in 12.83.
Although her time is faster than Aliuska Lopez’s official world U20 record of 12.84, Amusan’s mark won’t be ratified as there was no post-race drugs test. Dior Hall’s 12.74 clocking last year was not ratified as a world U20 record for the same reason.
But Amusan’s mark is an improvement on her own African junior record and will stand as the second-fastest time ever by a junior.
Amusan, who last year won the African junior and African Games titles, went on to win the 200m in El Paso in a big PB of 23.24.
“It was a really nice race and my plan was just to get out of the blocks,” Amusan told local reporters. “When I first looked at the scoreboard and it said 13.3 (seconds) I was very mad, but then when the official results popped up and said 12.83 I said YES!
“It is really a privilege to run sub 13,” she added. “It is great to see my goal come true that I have been training for over the past year.”
Meanwhile, world junior champion Bukowiecki opened his 2016 outdoor campaign with a record-breaking throw in Bojanowo on Sunday (1).
Competing with the 6kg shot, the 19-year-old opened his series with 21.41m, then sent his implement out to a European junior record of 22.91m in the third round, breaking David Storl’s mark of 22.73m from 2009.
But by the end of the competition, Bukowiecki had improved again, extending the record to 22.94m. His winning mark is the second-best junior performance in history and is just six centimetres shy of the world U20 record set by Jacko Gill in 2013.
Bukowiecki, who finished fourth at the IAAF World Indoor Championships Portland 2016, later contested the discus and set a PB of 60.85m with the 1.75kg implement, taking him to fourth on this year’s U20 world list.
Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF
