2022 World Championship: All You Need to Know about Team Liberia

The 2022 World Athletics Championships, the 18th edition, are scheduled to be held from July 15-24 in Eugene, Oregon (USA). The championships were originally scheduled for August 6–15, 2021. On April 8, 2020, World Athletics announced that the event would be postponed by one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting postponement of the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Team Liberia will for the sixth time be represented at the global outdoor event. Unlike the past three editions in which Liberia was represented by a single athlete, team Liberia will for the first time comprise four athletes — the highest representation so far.

The five athletes qualified individually in their respective events.

Who Are the Qualified Athletes?

Ebony Morrison (100m Hurdles): Team Liberia’s lone female representative to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Morrison will also be the team’s lone female rep. at the championship.

She became the first to book her ticket to the championship when she smashed a personal best, a national record, and a World Championship qualification time by clocking 12.74 seconds in the semifinals of the women’s 100m hurdles at the Tokyo Games.

After the Tokyo Games, the 27-year-old, at her first-ever international indoor championship in March 2022, set a new national indoor record in the women’s 60m hurdles at the 20th edition of the Meeting d'Athlétisme de Mondeville indoor championship held in Mondeville, France. She finished in 8.07 seconds in the semifinals.

She eventually won Bronze at the indoor event by finishing in 8.11 seconds in the final. Ebony was the best performing female African hurdler as she ended up finishing 13th in a field of 24 competitors according to the overall rankings.   Three months later, Morrison made another history by winning Liberia’s first-ever Silver medal at the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) African Senior Championship in Mauritius in the women’s 100m hurdles (12.77).

Joseph Fahnbulleh (100m, 200m): Named 2022 NCAA Men’s Track Athlete of the Year, Fahnbulleh, 20, was the second Liberian athlete to secure his ticket to the world championship. Like Morrison, Fahnbulleh appeared at the 2021 Tokyo Games when he hit the finish line with a time of 19.99 seconds in the men’s 200m, a result that qualified him for the final to become Liberia’s first-ever Olympics finalist.

Fahnbulleh’s history-making moments from the Tokyo games continued in 2022 as he went on to become a double champion at the 2022 NCAA championship by winning both 100m and 200m.

The 20-year-old will represent Liberia in the men’s 100m, and 200m at the championship.

Wellington Zaza (110m Hurdles): Currently sitting at spot #1 on the African continent in the men’s 110m hurdles, Zaza qualified for the global athletics event on May 1, when he ran the 110 meters hurdles, finishing at 13.36 seconds in Sao Paulo, Brazil. 

Zaza, 27, is the 2nd best African athlete in the men’s 60m hurdle ( 7.61) after Shaun Brownes (7.52) of South Africa. Zaza achieved the record when he finished 4th in the men's 60m hurdles of the Meeting d'Athlétisme de Mondeville indoors in Mondeville, France, in February of this year.

Emmanuel Matadi (100m): Matadi will be making his third consecutive appearance at the World Championship this year after his previous appearances at the 2017 and 2019 championships in London and Doha respectively.

The 31-year-old 100m national record holder will compete in the men’s 100m. He met the qualification standards after he sprinted his way through with a time of 19.98 to reclaim his 100m national record in the 2022 NGC NAAATT National Open Championship in Trinidad and Tobago.

Two weeks after Joseph Fahnbulleh (10.00) broke his Matadi's 100m National Record (10.01), he overtook Fahnbulleh on 24 June, after finishing first in the men's 100m preliminaries.