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USA’s Masai Russell won a fierce battle for the 100m hurdles title at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Saturday (10), dipping to victory in 12.33.
Getting gold by 0.01, it took a photo finish to decide the medallists, as Cyrena Samba-Mayela delighted the home crowd by securing silver for France in 12.34 and Puerto Rico’s defending champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn got bronze in 12.36.
In the deepest women’s 100m hurdles final in Olympic history, Nadine Visser and Grace Stark finished just three thousandths of a second apart as they both clocked 12.43 – Visser finishing a fraction ahead for fourth place.
Russell might only have won two finals in 2024, but she won the ones that mattered the most.
After an indoor season that included a fourth-place finish in the 60m hurdles at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, the 24-year-old’s path to Paris included 100m hurdles victory at the US Olympic Team Trials in Eugene where she clocked a world-leading 12.25 to move to joint fourth on the world all-time list.
She then won her heat in Paris in 12.53 and finished second to Camacho-Quinn in her semifinal in 12.42.
In the final Russell lined up in lane five, next to her teammates Stark and Johnson. Russell knocked the second hurdle but didn’t seem to lose too much momentum, but Johnson hit the next barrier hard, ending her medal hopes.
SOURCE: WORLD ATHLETICS
