Sember Earns Top-Five, British Record at World Championships
7/25/2022 10:59:00 AM | Men's Track & Field, Women's Track & Field
EUGENE, Ore. -- In what was one of the fastest women's 100-meter hurdles competitions in history, University of Michigan women's track and field alumna Cindy (Ofili) Sember posted a new British Record and Michigan's third top-six finish at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore., on Sunday (July 24).
Representing the United Kingdom, Sember finished fifth overall in the 100-meter hurdles final in a wind-aided 12.38 (+2.5 meters per second [m/s]), featuring prominently in a race that featured the fastest time in world history by winner Tobi Amusan of Nigeria at 12.06.
It was her second top-five finish in what is now five global championships appearances for her career. She finished fourth at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and was a semifinalist at the 2015 and 2019 World Championships and the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Though the performance in the final is not eligible for record status due to greater than 2.0m/s wind readings, it stands as the fastest all-conditions time ever run by a fifth-place finisher in any competition in the history of the world.
Her effort brought Michigan's total top-six finishes at these championships to three, joining fellow Briton Joshua Zeller's matching fifth-place finish in the men's 110-meter hurdles last weekend and a sixth-place showing on Nigeria's mixed 4x400 relay for Dubem Amene.
Former Wolverine Ayden Owens-Delerme, who transferred to Arkansas upon graduation from Michigan in 2021, finished fourth in the decathlon. Alum Steven Bastien was also 16th in that same competition.
Earlier in the evening during the semifinal round, Sember needed a new British record 12.50 (+0.9m/s) to secure the eighth-and-last spot in the final. Again running in a blistering race that produced a world-record 12.12 for Amusan, Sember was fourth overall in the first of three semifinal heats.
She bettered by 0.01 of a second the national record of 12.51 (+0.7m/s) held since September 14, 2014, by older sister and fellow U-M alumna Tiffany (Ofili) Porter.
Only the top two finishers in each heat automatically advanced, with two additional spots reserved for the two fastest non-automatic qualifiers across all three heats. She narrowly remained alive for advancement after the second heat as Megan Tapper of Jamaica clocked 12.52 (-0.1m/s) in third, and ultimately secured her berth as third place mustered only 12.66 (+0.3m/s).
Her performance in the semifinals marked the third-fastest fourth-place finish in world history, and the fastest-ever by a fourth-place finisher in a qualifying round. In European history, Sember now ranks tied for No. 15 on the wind-legal list, and No. 8 on the all-conditions list.
Bastien posted a solid two-day effort in the 10-event decathlon, finishing 16th with 7,939 points after receiving a late invitation to the championships less than three weeks prior to Saturday's opening 100-meter competition.
His best performances over Saturday and Sunday came in outdoor season's best efforts in the high jump at 2.02m (6-7.5), the discus at 40.66m (133-4) and the javelin at 55.80m (183-1). Relative to the field, his top showing was in the long jump, where a 7.41m (24-3.75) leap was 10th-best in the 22-man field.
Bastien has become something of a fixture on the American combined-event scene, having now competed in each of the last three major global championships. He was 10th at the Tokyo Olympics last summer, sixth at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Belgium, this winter, and 16th in Eugene this past weekend.
Players Mentioned
