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Paris 2024 – Athletics: Cyrena Samba-Mayela wins silver in the 100m hurdles
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(France Televisions)
The Frenchwoman won silver, just a whisker behind American Masai Russell, on Saturday, and gave French athletics its first medal at the Paris Games.
French athletics will not leave fanny. Cyréna Samba-Mayela won the silver medal in the 100m hurdles at the Paris Olympic Games, Saturday August 10 at the Stade de France. At the end of an extremely close race, the Frenchwoman even believed, for a time, to become Olympic champion, before the “photo finish” delivered its verdict. It was the American Masai Russell who won the title in 12″33, ahead of the four-time French champion (12″34) and the Puerto Rican Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (12″36), crowned in Tokyo in 2021.
Three years after her withdrawal from the Tokyo heats and two months after her European title in Rome, the native of Champigny-sur-Marne won the first Olympic medal of her career, despite having contracted Covid-19 a few weeks before the competition. It is also the first podium for French athletics at the Paris Games on home soil, just minutes after Gabriel Tual’s failure in the 800m.