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China's Wu Yanni has overtaken Japanese star Tanaka Yumi to become Asia's top-ranked female athlete in the 60m hurdles for the first time in her career.
According to the latest World Athletics rankings released on March 27, Wu now holds 1,258 points, placing her ahead of Tanaka, who previously led the continent and represented Japan at the 2022 Asian Games, 2023 World Championships, 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2025 World Athletics Indoor Championships.
Wu’s leap in the rankings comes after her outstanding performance at the 2025 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China. She set her personal best of 8.05 seconds in the heats, then broke the Chinese national record with 8.01 seconds in the semifinals.
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Wu Yanni at the 2025 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China. Photo by Instagram/@wuyanni_jennie |
Although Wu finished third in her semifinal heat, missing the final by just 0.01 seconds behind Jamaica’s Ackera Nugent, her overall performance earned her ninth place, the best result ever by a Chinese female hurdler at the World Athletics Indoor Championships.
Since the start of 2024, Wu has shown consistent improvement, shaving off fractions of a second with each race.
"Once you achieve something, you start over. I can't dwell on the record. I need to keep refining my technique," Wu told Xinhua.
Wu, 27, born in Sichuan, began her hurdles career in Neijiang before moving to Beijing Sports University.
She has been dubbed "China’s athletics goddess" and became famous on social media thanks to her outgoing personality and multiple tattoos, which she, and her fans, believe symbolize her confidence.
Wu first made headlines in 2016 when she won bronze in the 100m hurdles at the national championships with a time of 13.58 seconds. She repeated the result at the 13th national games in Tianjin, clocking 13.36.
In 2023, she won the national title and reached the final of the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, where she was controversially disqualified for a false start. Later that year, she claimed silver at the World University Games in Chengdu, setting a personal best of 12.85 in the semifinals and improving to 12.76 in the final.
At the 2022 Asian Games, Wu was again disqualified in the 100m hurdles final due to a false start. She competed in the 60m hurdles at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, clocking a personal best of 8.12 seconds.
Wu made her Olympic debut in Paris last year. But she gave herself a score of 0 because she could not excel in her specialty, the women's 100m hurdles.
