TOBI AMUSAN IN NATIONAL PRIDE CELEBRATES HER CHAMPIONSHIPS GOLD THE "BUGA STYLE"

TOBI AMUSAN IN NATIONAL PRIDE, CELEBRATES HER CHAMPIONSHIPS GOLD MEDAL THE "BUGA" STLE

TOBI AMUSAN in breaking the world 100 meters hurdles record in a swoop, twice in one day at the world Athletics Championships, uplifted the mood of a nation in dire need of a jolt and a dose of joy and exhilaration and a jolt, she gave,in a blistering race that culminated in the shattering of the world record 12.12 and 12.06 seconds in succession with "dampeners"from those who are quick to chorus that the later was wind assisted,but who cares and who is listening here,because it doesn't really matter,she has the Championships Gold of a winner around her neck.  

In her humility and humoured forthrightness she described herself as the "nearly girl" who always comes so close by whiskers but in one evening she gave her distractors and the world a rude and shocking awakening and showing that perseverance and self believe always pays off and has the last say.

Full of national pride she took to the musical hit of Afro Pop genre"BUGA" by her compatriot,Kiss Daniel,currently rocking the airwaves in her native country Nigeria, to celebrate on the victory lap.

It was a beauty to behold as she was draped with the Nigerian flag by her teammate Ese Brume who has just won a Silver Medal in the Long Jump event of the Championships in sheer joy and emotional release.In all the euphoria they both continued to attribute their success to God and divine orchestration.

Awesome,awesome stuff,the likes that we will not see in a long time to come.

AGAINST ALL ODDS: THE TOBI AMUSAN STORY

When you come from a land that devours her young, where the lies of the thieves in office menacle the limbs of the mighty and the winds of the nation are such that shackle the wings of the fledgling eagle, and the future of our youth is stolen into the pockets of a few greedy old men, when you are born in a place that is specifically and deliberately designed to make you fail, then it is indeed hard, very very hard, to become World Champion. And this is what makes Tobi Amusan’s gold medal and world record that much more special.

When Oluwatobilola Ayomide “Tobi” Amusan was born in Ijebu Ode on April 23, 1997, to parents who were both educationists, no one, not even her intuitive mother, knew exactly how special Tobi was. Ijebu Ode, a sleepy little town in Ogun State, is the capital of the Ijebu Kingdom in Nigeria with a population of about 222, 000 people. Their favourite meal is Ikokere, a delicious dish of water yam pottage. Amusan was the last of three children, and it just so happened that her mother was crazy about sports.

According to Amusan, while growing up her “existence revolved around school, sleeping, eating and reading books” and she took this set of conservative values and discipline with her into athletics.

Initially her father wanted her to concentrate on her studies alone, but there was something about the running tracks that drew Amusan like a magnet. She could not keep away. She craved the exhilaration of the race. It was something she knew, deep inside of her, she could do better than anyone else. Tobi was a church girl with a twist. She had fallen in love with the sprinting tracks. She went to church but not out of ritual. She went because she believed, she had faith and she had perseverance.

When Amusan’s mother saw that her little girl was a natural sprinter, she encouraged her and then conspired with her against her strict husband who wanted Amusan to spend more time with her books. Her mother would pretend Amusan was at church while she was actually at the stadium, building her muscles and her stamina and learning how to compete for the ultimate prize. She was not in any way a dull child, but academics was not her area of greatest comparative advantage.

As Amusan grew, she grew up with a dark, shiny ebony skin, unusually long legs for her tall frame and a steely look in her eyes. Her face was the face of the African amazon, the face of Queen Moremi, the face of Amina of Zaria, the same face that inspired the FESTAC mask.

But there were no large masculine muscles in her body. If she wore a frock and put on a little make up, you would never imagine that she could run like a bullet and leap like a lion. What her parents gave her was the discipline of hard work, the day-to-day quotidian grind of doing what is hard and boring and lonely to get what you love. What they couldn’t give her was not apparent to the naked eye: it was the steely determination deep inside of her, the unique spring in her step, the fast twitch muscles, the crazy speed and the rhythm to leap over hurdles like an orchestra playing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus or Bob Marley singing One Love.

She knew she had it, but she needed to prove it, for the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so she started small. She won a silver medal in the 2013 African Youth Championships in Warri, Delta State, Nigeria. In the same year she made the semifinals in the 200m in the world Athletics U18 Championships but was disqualified for running in the wrong lane. In 2015, she took the gold in the 100m hurdles in the African Junior Championships in Botswana. Eventually, she would settle for the 100m hurdles.

In 2016, as a freshman for The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), Amusan became the second athlete for the university to be named C-USAC-USA Female Track athlete of the Year since UTEP joined C-USA. She was the gold medalist in both the 100m hurdles and the 200 m. She also claimed a silver in the long jump at the C-USA Championships.  Amusan first broke the 13 second barrier in the hurdles with a time of 12.83 at the El Paso UTEP Invitational. This eclipsed Kim Turner's 100m hurdles UTEP record which had stood for 33 years. She was runner-up at the 2016 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 100m hurdles. She ran a windy 12.79 s behind Kentucky's Jasmine Camacho-Quinn. Amusan also competed at the 2016 World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz. Despite running her second fastest time ever, she placed fifth in the final. She went on to represent Nigeria at the Rio Olympic Games, reaching the semifinals of the 100m hurdles.

According to her, the best decision she ever made was to relocate to the United States to further her education. There she found the facilities, the support, the coaches and the understanding to achieve her track dreams while getting an education.

In the Tokyo Olympics she finished 4th with a time of 12.60 seconds with her perennial rival Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico winning the gold in a time of 12.37seconds, and Kendra Harrison the world record holder coming in second with 12.52 seconds. It was a painful experience for Amusan but she didn’t give up. She went on to win the Diamond League, then in 2022 when the effects of the pandemic left the athletes feeling like coiled springs waiting to explode, Amusan exploded.

At Eugene 2022, there was something different about Amusan. There was a quiet assurance, a steely determination, a confidence that was not arrogant.

The distance she left between herself and her co-competitors in the first heat should have warned the world, but they did not take her seriously. I know I didn’t. I was too used to Nigerian failures. I had lowered my expectations considerably.

But on that night, when the stars and the configuration of the galaxies and her body and her mind and spirit came together to say yes to Amusan all at the same time, she seized that moment which comes only once or twice or thrice at the most in an athlete’s life time.

In the semifinals, she smashed the world record in one of the most difficult races in sprint athletics, breasting the finish line at a time 12.12 seconds.

Then came the finals on that same night. On the 7th lane was Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, a brilliant hurdler and the reigning Olympic champion. On the 3rd lane was Kendra Harrison, the woman who had held the world record until only a few hours ago when Amusan ran her semifinal race. Amusan’s credentials were that she was a Diamond League winner, the African and the Commonwealth Champion. Indeed, she had come a a long way from the sleepy little town of Ijebu Ode.

When the starting gun went off, she wasn’t the fastest off the blocks but after the first hurdle there was no catching her and the commentator said “I can’t believe this!” because Amusan had just broken the world record again on the same night with a time of 12.06 (which was later disallowed because it was wind assisted).

Nigeria had 26 athletes in the NCAA finals this year alone. The highest number in the history of the NCAA and the most ever by any country outside of the USA.

 

As things go here, Amusan could as well have ended selling ground nuts on a tray balanced on her head, sprinting after cars in traffic with those long powerful legs until the poverty grinds her down. That is the tragedy we face here as a nation. But today we rejoice in what Amusan has achieved.

Her name is Tobi Amusan. You will remember her name. And she is going to break that world record again.

By Valentine Emeka Utulu