World champion and record holder in the 100m women’s hurdles, Tobi Amusan has revealed that she used to be on her school’s soccer team before opting for athletics.
The 25-year-old ran a time of 12.12 seconds – shaving almost a tenth of a second off the previous world record – in the semi-finals of the World Championships in Oregon before clinching gold in the final.
In an interview with BBC, she revealed that her journey into athletics started as somewhat of an accident at Our Lady of Apostles Secondary School in Ogun State, Nigeria.
“I used to be on the soccer team, but I would be all over the place on the pitch,” Amusan said.
“My coach suggested I go try out on the track team and I became the fastest girl on the team, and that’s how I got on the school relay team.
She went on to make the national squad for the 2013 Africa Youth Games in Nigeria, but she missed out on a place on the relay team and went on to win a bronze in the long jump instead.
Competing over hurdles was another unexpected switch in Amusan’s journey to stardom and is where she would truly breakthrough on the senior stage.
“The officials were always picking who they wanted in the relay team. Sometimes they would say I didn’t have the experience so they would pick whoever was their favourite,” she explained.
“It was a lot of pressure on a young athlete. I considered quitting. I really wanted to travel with the senior national team and some coaches told me to try the hurdles.”
She had to overcome doubts from officials in Nigerian athletics before picking up her first senior hurdles title at the African Games in Congo-Brazzaville in 2015.
