Olympic gold medalist Masai Russell set an American record in the 100-meter hurdles on Friday, running 12.17 seconds for the second-fastest time in world history and giving a boost to the nascent Grand Slam Track league.
On a sunny day in Miramar, Fla., Russell edged fellow American Tia Jones, who finished in 12.19 seconds, the third-fastest time in history. With a tailwind of 2 meters per second, the race at the Ansin Sports Complex was just within the legal parameters to count in the record books.
Masai Russell just dropped a 12.17 (+2.0) and the American record with it.
Clean. Fast. Unmatched. pic.twitter.com/43ba30IErk
— Grand Slam Track (@GrandSlamTrack) May 2, 2025
Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan holds the world record with a 12.12, achieved at the 2022 world championships in Eugene, Ore.
The 24-year-old Russell won gold in the same event at the Paris Olympics, finishing in 12.33 seconds to edge France’s Cyréna Samba-Mayela in a photo finish.
The result is a jolt for Grand Slam Track, the new league founded by four-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson. It debuted last month in Kingston, Jamaica, with an uneven event that featured some compelling races and others that lagged well behind top times during a part of the year when athletes are typically not in top form.
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But it didn’t take long in the second event to get a highlight — the 100-meter hurdles was the first of Friday’s eight races.
Johnson has said that setting records is not as important to his league’s success as creating rivalries, but eye-catching times like Friday’s won’t hurt the cause. After the result came in Friday, Johnson was seen jumping in celebration.
Johnson, who won four Olympic track golds from 1992 to 2000 for the U.S., started the league in hopes of keeping the sport in the spotlight during non-Olympic times. The season consists of four events, or “Slams,” held from April to June. Each event features athletes competing in two races in one of six disciplines, broken up by gender and distance. The athlete with the best cumulative result across the two races in each category wins a $100,000 prize. (Read more about how it works here.)
The South Florida event continues through Sunday.
At the Kingston event, there were sparse crowds at the 35,000-seat national stadium in the Jamaican capital throughout the weekend, leaving Johnson wishing for a better turnout in the U.S. races. On Friday, the stands at the much smaller, 5,000-seat Ansin Sports Complex were filled to watch Russell’s feat. She’ll run again Saturday in a flat 100-meter, the second event of the women’s short hurdles category.
In other results Friday, Great Britain’s Josh Kerr won the men’s 1,500-meter in the men’s short distance category in 3:34.51, edging American rivals and fellow Paris Olympic podium finishers Yared Nuguse and Cole Hocker. They’ll return Saturday to run the 800-meter. The three of them finished behind Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi — the Olympic 800-meter champion who was not in the field Friday — in the 1,500 in one of the best races of the debut event.
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden won the 100-meter in the women’s short sprints category, finishing in 10.75 seconds. She was the bronze medalist in that event in Paris.
The next two Grand Slam Track events will be in Philadelphia (May 30-June 1) and Los Angeles (June 27-29).
(Photo of Masai Russell celebrating her Olympic gold in Paris last August: Tim Clayton / Corbis via Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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