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Claim: Multiple online sources claim that Tobi Amusan won gold for Nigeria at the Paris Olympic Games.
Verdict: Misleading! The video shared was from Tobi Amusan’s 2023 World Athletics championship win. The women’s 100m hurdles final at the Paris Olympic Games will be held on August 10, 2024.
Full Text
The Paris Olympic Games 2024 kicked off in France on July 26 and will end on August 11. Nigeria is participating in the games with 84 athletes across 12 sports. Tobi Amusan, the reigning African and World record holder in 100m hurdles, was Nigeria’s flagbearer during the opening ceremony of the competition.
On August 2, RNN TV, a YouTube channel, claimed that Tobi Amusan had broken the world record at the ongoing Olympic games. The video was viewed by 27,000 YouTubers, and in the comment section, YouTubers congratulated her on the achievement.
On X, her name was trending as users continued to roll out congratulatory messages for her. As of early morning on August 4, 2024, her name –Tobi– was second on the trend list after ‘President Tinubu’ on the platform.
One of the popular posts on X was shared by Bukky (@_Callmebekky). The handle posted, “Tobi Amusan has broken two Olympic records in one night. Tobi Amusan wins the hurdles.” The post has 460,000 views, 20,000 likes, 2,700 retweets and comments. Similar posts can be found here, here and here.
Senator Dino Melaye also used his X account (@_dinomelaye) on July 31 to congratulate the World Record Holder.
Mr Melaye wrote, “Tobi Amusan, Nigeria’s hurdles sensation, made history last night at the Paris Olympics Games. She shattered not one but TWO world records in a single evening, leaving the world in awe. Congratulations to Tobi Amusan on this incredible feat!”
Similar posts can be found on Facebook here, here and here.
Due to the suspicions surrounding the video shared, we conducted a fact-check.
Verification
We analysed the video’s keyframe using Google Reverse Image Search. We found the video on the World Athletics YouTube page. It was recorded at the World Athletics Championship in Oregon in 2022.
The Punch Newspaper and Premium Times reports in 2022 also confirmed that Amusan ran the record-breaking race in 2022. Amusan broke the African and world records twice in the finals with 12.12secs in the semi-final and 12.06secs in the final, beating the previous 12.20secs set by USA’s Keni Harrison in 2016.
We went through the official website of the Paris Olympic Games 2024. We found that the Women’s 100m hurdles race will begin on August 7, and the final race is set for August 10 in France.
Conclusion
The claim that Tobi Amusan has won gold for Nigeria at the ongoing Paris Olympic Games 2024 is misleading! The video shared was from the World Athletics Championship in Oregon in 2020. The 100m hurdles race is slated for August 7 and 10 at the Paris Olympic Games 2024.
This report is produced for the DUBAWA 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship in partnership with The Hope Newspaper to facilitate the ethos of truth in journalism and enhance media literacy in Nigeria.
