By Pascal Ibe

Claim

A former Nigerian Senator, Dino Melaye posted a video on Facebook and claimed Tobi Amusan set new world record at 2024 Paris Olympics.

Verdict

This is Misleading.

Findings showed that it was an old video in July 2022 when the 25-year-old athlete won the 100 metres hurdles gold at the World Athletics Championships.

Full Text

A Nigerian Senator with over 2 million followers on Facebook, Dino Melaye has posted video of Tobi Amusan, a Nigerian track and field athlete who specialises in the 100 metres hurdles and claimed she made history at the ongoing 2024 Paris Olympics Games.

Dino Melaye is a politician and former Senator who represented Kogi West Senatorial District in Nigeria Senate.

Melaye was also the People’s Democratic Party candidate in the 2023 Kogi State governorship election.

Dino Melaye claimed Tobi Amusan, made history last night at the ongoing Paris Olympics Games. 

According to the politician cum social media influencer, “she shattered not one, but TWO world records in a single evening, leaving the world 🌍 in awe. Her remarkable achievement has brought immense pride to Nigeria and the entire continent of Africa. 

“Congratulations to Tobi Amusan on this incredible feat! 🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬, “Melaye wrote on  his Facebook account.

Dino Melaye also attached a video of Tobi Amusan’s participation in the 100 metres hurdle competition and her victory.

The post by Dino Melaye gamered over 5k reactions and many Facebook users congratulated Tobi in her latest achievement.

FactWatch also observed that this claim has spread to many WhatsApp groups, Instagram pages and on Nairaland as at Thursday afternoon.

Verification

First, when key frames from the video were subjected to simple Google image reverse search, results showed that the video first appeared online in July 2022, when Tobi Amusan made history by winning the 100 metres hurdles gold at the World Athletics Championships, marking it as Nigeria’s first gold medal in the competition.

In a report by Africanews, after breaking the world record in her semifinal heat with a time of 12.12 seconds, she even made a faster time for the final. Unfortunately, this mark of 12.06 seconds didn’t count for the record books because the wind speed was over the legal limit.

Amusan went on to become the world record holder in the 100 metres hurdles with a time of 12.12 seconds which she set at the 2022 women’s 100 metres hurdles semi final in Eugene Oregon

When typed a keyword , “Tobi Amusan At Paris 2024 Olympics “, Into Google search, finding indicated that this claim is not true.

According to the Leadership newspaper, Nigeria’s 100m hurdles world record holder, Tobi Amusan, finished in second position with a time of 12.60s (-1.7m/s) behind the USA’s Grace Stark, who won with a time of 12.58s on Saturday, July 20, at the pre-Olympics race in Florida.

Conclusion

Findings showed  that old video of Tobi Amusan achievement in 2022, was recirculated by Dino Melaye to mislead the public.