In the heats, Wu faced the Paris 2024 Olympic champion, Jasmine Russell, and other top athletes with times under 12.70 seconds. With a season-best of 12.96 seconds, the Chinese athlete was considered the underdog in the group.

Wu Yanni (left) competes in the women's 100m hurdles heats at the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships on 14/9. Photo: VCG

Nerves led to a slow start for Yanni, with a reaction time of 0.293 seconds—much slower than her usual times in domestic competitions. This proved crucial, as in world-class sprints, losing even a few hundredths of a second at the start can be nearly impossible to recover from.

Despite her strong finish, Yanni placed 5th in her heat with a time of 13.12 seconds. This placed her outside the top three automatic qualifying spots and was also insufficient to secure a fastest-loser qualification. Only the top three athletes from each heat and the next six fastest overall advance to the semi-finals.

Yanni finished 32nd out of 44 athletes in the women's 100m hurdles at the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships. The slowest athlete was Liz Clay (Australia) with a time of 13.82 seconds. Ditaji Kambundji (Switzerland) won the gold medal with a time of 12.24 seconds.

After the race, Yanni explained that she was affected by a delayed starting signal, and a twitch from the Irish athlete in the next lane almost caused her to false start. "I aimed to break the 13-second mark, even aiming for 12.80 seconds. But my start was too slow today, and I was distracted by the starting signal, so I couldn't perform at my best. I need more experience and stability in major competitions," the 28-year-old athlete said.

Yanni candidly admitted to a poor performance in her first world championship appearance, attributing it to nerves, lack of focus, and difficulty adapting to the track conditions. She mentioned she didn't feel tired after the race, indicating she hadn't exerted her full potential. However, she remained optimistic, expressing excitement at competing alongside the world's best athletes. She viewed the experience as valuable and thanked her fans.

"If I could run again, I believe I could do better. I managed to close the gap a bit towards the end, but not enough. I should have been able to hit 12.7 seconds," she said.

Yanni is the first Chinese athlete to compete in all five major women's 100m hurdles competitions: the Olympics, the World Athletics Championships, the World Indoor Championships, the Asian Games, and the Asian Championships. Experts say her strength is her finishing speed, but her biggest weakness remains her start—something she needs to improve to contend for medals in the future.

Compiled by Hong Duy