In December 2021, collegiate observe and area star Masai Russell joined the inaugural class of WWE’s Subsequent In Line (NIL) program alongside the likes of dual basketball gamers Haley and Hanna Cavinder. Quick ahead to August 2024, the College of Kentucky alum is now competing within the 2024 Olympics, based mostly in Paris, France. Russell’s Olympic expertise notably included the ladies’s 100-meter hurdles remaining, through which she beat out France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela by .01 seconds. Because of this, Russell, a member of Staff USA, was rewarded with a gold medal for the occasion — one thing WWE Chief Content material Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque is very impressed with.
Commercial
“Large congrats to inaugural #WWENIL class member Masai Russell on taking house Olympic gold within the 100m hurdles,” wrote Levesque on X (previously Twitter).
Large congrats to inaugural #WWENIL class member Masai Russell on taking house Olympic gold within the 100m hurdles. https://t.co/0Sa4Vx6oOM
— Triple H (@TripleH) August 10, 2024
Russell herself later commented on her victory within the 100-meter hurdles, noting that regardless of the criticisms surrounding her, she remained targeted on her objective of crossing the end line. “So many individuals have been saying so many loopy issues about me,” Russell informed The Athletic, “as they at all times do whenever you’re not doing what they imagine you are able to. However I simply continued to close out the noise and deal with what I can management … It was actually a dream come true.”
Commercial
The ultimate outcomes of the ladies’s 100-meter hurdles occasion confirmed Russell ending with a time of 12:33 seconds, whereas Samba-Mayela adopted carefully behind with a time of 12:34 seconds. With this, Russell can now formally name herself an Olympic gold medalist.
