Legendary American sprinter Michael Johnson faced a tidal wave of backlash today (July 25) for a tweet in which he seemed to ‘struggle’ with accepting Tobi Amusan’s world record in the women’s 100 metre hurdles.

Amusan ran a brilliant 12.12 seconds to set a new record at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, during the sunset hours of the meet yesterday.

It was a historic occasion for the women competing in semi-final one of the 100m hurdles, as all eight athletes registered either personal bests, season’s bests or national records.

For his part as commentator at the games, Johnson was beside himself in disbelief at the tremendous quality on display by the women, as at the end of the three semi-finals, 12 personal best times and five national records were shattered.

“I don’t believe 100h times are correct. World record broken by .08! 12 PBs set. 5 National records set. And Cindy Sember quote after her PB/NR ‘I throughly I was running slow!’ All athletes looked shocked,” he tweeted.

Amusan returned to win Nigeria’s first-ever World Championship gold medal in a time of 12.06s, ahead of Britany Anderson of Jamaica (12.23s) and Puerto Rican Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (12.23s) placing second and third respectively.

The Nigerian, coached by Jamaica’s Lacena Golding-Clarke, would have shaved her impressive world record even further had the wind readings been registered as legal.

The tweet by Johnson, or rather its nuanced tone, elicited negative reactions from Nigerians on Twitter, many of whom interpreted his statement to be a dismissal of Amusan’s world record time.

The decorated Olympian’s comment was also viewed to be hypocritical in the face of several world records set by American athletes at the Eugene games, which critics noted were not met with the same ‘scrutinous gaze’ from Johnson.

The former world record holder himself was accused of being ‘racist’ as Nigerians joined forces to berate Johnson for hours on end. The 54-year-old was also hit by allegations he was ‘still bitter’ over the US 4x100m men’s team being disqualified at the 2000 Sydney Olympics for doping.

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Johnson, returning to deny all accusations, called the online attacks “unacceptable”.

According to him, the narrative spread on Twitter holds no weight since he expected Amusan to win the event and has shown her nothing but respect.

“As a commentator my job is to comment. In questioning the times of 28 athletes (not 1 athlete) by wondering if the timing system malfunctioned, I was attacked, accused of racism, and of questioning the talent of an athlete I respect and predicted to win. Unacceptable. I move on,” he said.