Amusan will soon break Alozie’s record, says athletics statistician
Olalekan Soetan, a Lagos-based athletics statistician, yesterday said he was optimistic that Oluwatobiloba Amusan, a 100 metres hurdler, would in due course surpass the record set by Glory Alozie.
Soetan told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that Amusan was ripe to rise to the next level, especially as she has now gone professional.
He was reacting to Amusan’s time in her professional debut for Adidas at the Martin Luther King NCAA Invitational.
“Tobi is ready to challenge the other athletes in the world, the fact that she has gone professional is enough reason to be happy for her,” Soetan said.
Amusan, who ran in the 60m hurdles, came first with a time of 7.95 seconds, few seconds ahead of Dior Hall from University of Southern California (USC) who ran 7.98secs.
The World Championships semi-finalist opened her professional debut by clocking an impressive Personal Best of 7.89secs in the semi-finals at the event.
Soetan, also a vertical and horizontal jumps Coach, said that he was optimistic that Amusan, with consistency, would surpass the record of 7.82 secs set by Alozie.
“The 7.82 secs Alozie set is a small task for Tobi. She will take it down to 7.60 secs in due course. She did too many races in 2017, more than 45 performances.
“For someone who ran less than 10 races per season back home, to run many races in 2017 and still run a sub-13 sec at the World Championships, shows that she can only get better.
“Even with lesser appearances, in fact, ‘gainful’ ones at her own convenience. It’s a huge congratulations to our golden girl on her going pro,” he said.