American Russell obliterates Amusan's 100m hurdles world record at the Diamond League in Zurich

The Olympic champion Masai Russell clocks 12.09 to end Tobi Amusan's four-year reign atop the world list, minutes after Alison dos Santos had broken Karsten Warholm's 400m hurdles world record at the same meeting.

Russell produced one of the standout moments of an extraordinary night at Weltklasse Zürich, breaking Amusan's 100m hurdles world record with a time of 12.09.

The American, 26, had been closing in on the record all season, having already run 12.14 – the second-fastest time in history – in Xiamen back in May.

With the wind reading a dead calm 0.0m/sec, she shaved three hundredths off the 12.12 Amusan had held since her semi-final victory at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene.

Amusan herself took second, running a season's best 12.23, with European champion Nadine Visser third in a season's best 12.34. Home favourite Ditaji Kambundji, the reigning world champion, was seventh in 12.82 in front of her own crowd.

With the Wanda Diamond League Final in Brussels just one week away, Alison dos Santos opened the record-breaking sequence with a stunning 45.80 in the men’s 400m hurdles, and less than 40 minutes later Russell followed with 12.09 in the women’s 100m hurdles, as two world records fell at the final regular-season Wanda Diamond League meeting of the year.

By the end of the evening, Diamond League records, meeting records, world leads and national records had been scattered across the programme, with the women’s 800m and men’s pole vault also edging into world record territory.

Dos Santos, the 2022 world champion, made up the stagger on multiple global champion Karsten Warholm by halfway, then continued to forge ahead. The Brazilian charged through the line in 45.80, taking 0.14 off the world record set by Warholm at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.

Warholm finished a distant second in 46.69 – still one of the fastest times in history – but this was Dos Santos’ night, and one of the defining performances of the season.

“The crowd and the energy were perfect,” said Dos Santos. “This night was amazing for me and for everyone who came to watch, and everyone watching from home. I hope Brazil stopped to watch it.

“I have no words to explain what happened other than: I just broke the world record. I have been showing great form throughout the season – that I am fast, that I am strong. We changed a lot in training and racing for this. I’m starting faster, I’m finishing stronger, and that is what I had to do to break a world record.

“I was looking for my coach as soon as I crossed the finish line. I was the one running, but he made this possible. He believed in me when I was younger and helped me develop as an athlete and as a person.”

A photo-finish was needed to separate Olympic champion Julien Alfred and world champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden in the women’s 100m, both clocking 10.70 as Alfred took victory by five thousandths of a second in a national record. It was just the second time in history that two women had run 10.70 or faster in the same race