American hurdler sprinter Masai Russel has explained her controversial start during the hurdle 100m race at the inaugural Athlos even in New York on Thursday, September 26.
The Olympic champion settled for third place after a poor start to the race but mastered a great comeback in the final meters of the race to keep herself in the mix with a time of 12.44 seconds.
Diamond League champion and Olympic bronze medalist Jasmine Camacho-Quinn kept up her good form since the Olympics as she surged to victory with a time of 12.36 seconds ahead of American sprinter Alaysha Johnson in second place, clocking 12.43 seconds.
Masai Russell praised Gabby Thomas for her involvement in organizing the women-only event Athlos, expressing confidence in its success due to Thomas' understanding of female athletes' challenges and her leadership.
Russell has revealed that she is protesting the result of the race due to a false start to the race.
“My agent went to talk to the race director. I want to protest because as anyone can see there was a lot of flinching going on at the starting line and that affected me, so I was playing catch up the entire race,” she told
“It is a big prize money on the line and the person that run the legal race should get the prize money that they deserve,” added Russel
Brittany Brown has finally made a statement with a dominant win in the women's 200m over Olympic champion Gabby Thomas in New York.
Russel however was reluctant to re-run the race when questioned on whether she wanted the race repeated.
“I don’t want to re-run it but I think if the sensors and people’s reaction time was faster than what was allowed then that should be taken into account,” explained Russel.
“When you are representing world athletics and you have world class athletes coming to a meet the standard should be there,” she added