This may be the bright spot hoped for by French athletics, in great difficulty since the missed Tokyo Olympics (only one medal with the silver of decathlete Kevin Mayer). The French Cyréna Samba-Mayela was crowned indoor world champion in the 60m hurdles on Saturday in Belgrade. The 21-year-old from Lille won in 7’78, a new French record, ahead of the Bahamian Devynne Charlton (7’81) and the American Gabriele Cunningham (7’87).
Samba-Mayela, presented as one of the greatest hopes of tricolor athletics, won her first medal on the international level. Born in Champigny-sur-Marne, the one who, for three years, has been training at Insep under the leadership of former triple jumper Teddy Tamgho, was indeed vice-world champion among the youngest in 2017 and medalist silver at the Euro juniors in 2021 over 100m hurdles.
A student in a school of interior architecture, passionate about music (she plays the guitar and the piano) and painting, the hurdleuse had seen her Olympic dream shattered prematurely with an injury to the hamstrings during the warm-up in the heats of the 100m. «This injury allowed me to continue to work on my hamstrings, and to come back even stronger, ”explained, before the start of the Indoor Worlds, the one who dreamed of reaching the final.
On the Belgrade track, the former figure skater, who also went through judo and basketball before discovering athletics at the age of 15 at AC Paris, made the powder talk, winning her series then her semi-final, before going gold. It was a few minutes before seeing the Italian Marcell Jacobs, Olympic champion in the 100m, being crowned world champion in the 60m indoors (6′’41), just ahead of the American Christian Coleman, back to competition. , after 18 months of suspension for breaches of his anti-doping whereabouts obligations.