Tobi Amusan has stepped up preparations for the 2026 Diamond League Final with victory in the women’s 100m hurdles at the Grand Prix Brescia in Italy.
The Nigerian sprinter clocked 12.56 seconds to win Sunday’s race despite facing a strong headwind of 1.7 metres per second.
American hurdler Alaysha Johnson finished second in 12.62 seconds, while Jamaica’s Ackera Nugent took third in 12.75 seconds.
Amusan’s victory came just days after American Olympic champion Masai Russell broke her world record at the Zurich Diamond League meeting.
Russell ran 12.09 seconds at the Letzigrund Stadium last Thursday to improve Amusan’s previous world record of 12.12 seconds by three hundredths of a second.
Amusan finished runner-up in Zurich in a season’s best of 12.23 seconds.
The Nigerian had held the world record for four years after clocking 12.12 seconds in the semi-finals of the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
She went on to win the world title in the final with a wind-assisted 12.06 seconds, but the performance could not count as a world record because the tailwind exceeded the permitted limit.
Amusan and Russell are set to meet again at the Diamond League Final in Brussels, Belgium, which will be held from 4 to 5 September.
The Nigerian will be aiming to reclaim the Diamond League crown after winning the title three consecutive times in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The Brussels meeting is expected to provide another opportunity for Amusan to test herself against Russell following their latest encounters in Zurich and Brescia.
