“My Job is to comment”: Michael Johnson responds to accusations after questioning 100m hurdles times at World Championships
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Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson, U.S track and Field legend and a four-time Olympic Gold medalist was accused of racism after he questioned about the accuracy of finishing times recorded in women’s hurdles at World Athletics Championships. Johnson, the former Olympic star in track and field events questioned the timings of the women’s 100m hurdles while commentating for BBC.
Johnson’s comments came after Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan set a new world record in semifinals of women’s 100m hurdles by clocking a time of 12.12 seconds. The Nigerian broke the previous world record of 12.20 seconds held by USA’s Kendra Harrison. Amusan, was also stunned by her finishing time. “I believe in my abilities, but I was not expecting a world record at these championships,” she said. “The goal is always just to execute well and get the win.”
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Michael Johnson accused of racist comments at World Championships
Michael Johnson, who has won eight world championship gold medals, on Sunday questioned about the hurdle times on Twitter. “I don’t believe 100h times are correct. World record broken by .08! 12 PBs set. 5 National records set. And Cindy Sember quote after her PB/NR “I throughly I was running slow!” All athletes looked shocked” tweeted Johnson. Many people, especially the Nigerians were unhappy about Johnson’s comments and they dragged him down for his racist comments.
However, Tobi Amusan went ahead to win gold for Nigeria in wind aided women’s 100m hurdles by clocking 12.06s finishing time. The thought triggered in Johnson’s mind was not because Tobi Amusan set the world record, but it was because of 12 personal bests was set and 5 national records were broken during the run. Johnson also pointed out that in the same event 12 out of 24 semi-finalist’s recorded their best ever times.
On the same day Johnson was abused and attacked on twitter and he responded by saying “The level of Dumbassery coming across my feed right now is truly staggering!”. Early Monday, Johnson defended his job as a commentator for BBC. He tweeted “As a commentator my job is to comment”. He called the alleged accusations on racism ‘unacceptable’.
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