Jamaica’s sprint hurdler Danielle Williams delivered a spectacular performance at the Xiamen Diamond League, to claim victory in the women’s 100m hurdles with a time of 12.53 seconds. The race saw Williams execute a perfectly timed late surge to overtake America’s Grace Stark just before the finish line.
Stark, who had led for much of the race, finished second in 12.58 seconds, while South Africa’s Marione Fourie secured third place with a strong 12.62. Nigeria’s world record holder Tobi Amusan, making her 2025 outdoor season debut, finished fourth in 12.74 seconds.
Meanwhile, World Indoor Champion Devynne Charlton of the Bahamas suffered an early setback after clipping a hurdle, resulting in a did not finish (DNF).
Williams expressed satisfaction with her performance, emphasizing her focus on finishing strong.
“I think it was a pretty good execution. I came out here, the focus was on the last half of the race, trying to finish strong, and I think I did that, so I’m satisfied,” she said in a post-race interview.
Despite a hectic travel schedule, Williams dismissed concerns about fatigue.
“No, we’ve pretty much passed jet lag. We’ve been here for a while now. I feel like I’m Chinese now.”
“It’s early April, and the season goes all the way to September, so we’re not even halfway into the training cycle yet. It’s definitely a good sign,” she noted.
Williams also revealed key tweaks to her race strategy.
“I’ve tweaked a lot. The game has changed, and everybody’s running really fast, so I had to make some adjustments to get up there. I tweaked the start and the finish, and now we’re working on making it automatic in these races,” she explained.
All eyes now turn to Shanghai as Williams aims to maintain her red-hot Diamond League form.
