Saturday at the LA Grand Prix should have belonged to Masai Russell. She had arrived in Los Angeles carrying the weight of a season that had already flirted with history. The Olympic champion made the 100m hurdles look routine, but what fans didn’t expect to see was her easing off in the final stages.

The Olympic gold medalist slowed down at the finish, turning back to see how close her rivals were, before clocking 12.26 seconds, only 0.14 seconds shy of Tobi Amusan’s current world record of 12.12. Had she not already had a time on the list, it would have been enough to place her joint 11th on the all-time list. Still, fans couldn’t understand why the 25-year-old would do that, with one rightfully pointing out, “That was her opportunity to break the WR, didn’t need to jog.”

Russell was coming off a stunning 12.14 run at the Xiamen Diamond League. It saw her soar up the all-time list for the 100m hurdles into second, only 0.02 seconds off Amusan’s 12.12 in 2022.

Even then, Russell’s 12.26 is in line with her other performances this season: 12.25 at the Shanghai Diamond League; 12.47 and 12.40 at the Jim Green Invitational. Her 12.14 matches her performance at the Grand Slam Track meet in Miami: 12.17 seconds.

Outside that, Russell would break sub-12.20 one more time in the season, registering 12.19 at the Silesia Diamond League Meet. Beyond that, however, Russell ranged between 12.22 and 12.60, even finishing fourth at the World Athletics Championships. It just shows how fast she went at the Grand Prix, given her history. Not only that, she truly believes that she will take down Amusan’s record this year.

“I’ve been saying all year that I’m going to break the world record. I don’t know when it’s going to come, but I keep getting closer and closer,” Russell said, as per Olympic.com in May.

“It’s still early for me. Once we get into championship season, we’ll see some even crazier times, which is crazy to say.”

Whether she was taking it easy or whether she realised the world record wasn’t in her grasp at this race is something nobody but Russell will know. And yet, the fan reactions said it all. 

Fans remain split on Russel’s performance

“Mmmkay that was a lot closer than I expected 😃,” one fan commented.

It certainly was. Russell’s 12.26 puts her in a class of her own. However, second to fourth had only 0.08 seconds separating them as Davis-Woodhall clocked 12.47 for second place.

Meanwhile, Grace Stark was 0.01 seconds behind, with Alia Armstrong crossing the line at 12.55. That trend continued down the line as Danielle Williams (12.59), Cyrena Samba-Mayela (12.62), and Kendra Harrison (12.64) all had milliseconds separating them.

However, many were perplexed as to why Russell jogged.

One fan asked: “Now why she slowed down ?”

Another said: “Like she really slowed down Yooooooo, she means business Tobi get up!!!!!!!!!”

Seconds away once more from breaking Amusan’s 12.12, nobody could understand what was going through Russell’s mind in the closing minutes of the race.

“she eased off too i— masai is not playing with us this year also, tara did her big one ikdr,” said one. The gap was not too big for Davis-Woodhall to capitalize on. 

In the end, though, Russell left fans debating how close she is to the world record.