‘This is what I needed before Tokyo,’ says Salwa Eid Naser after beating Paulino to win third Diamond League Title

Former World 400m champion, Nigeria-born Bahraini, Salwa Eid Naser defeated reigning World and Olympic champion, Mareiledy Paulino to win the Diamond League Trophy Thursday evening in Zurich.

Eid Nasr sped to an impressive 48.70 finish, a new meeting record, to beat Paulino for only the second time this season. The Dominican Republic athlete ran 49.23 to come second with Norwegian, Henriette JÆGER third in 49.49, setting a new national record in the process.

The Anambra state-born athlete says post-race the victory has brought her the needed confidence going to Tokyo, Japan for the 20th World Athletics Championships.

Eid Naser won the World 400m title for her adopted country, Bahrain in 2019 and the 27 year old is looking to reclaim the title from her nemesis, Paulino come next month.

She knows she will need to run close to the 48.14 she ran in 2019 to win but Ebelechukwu (her original Nigerian name) is confident of going to Tokyo after the Diamond League win.

‘Coming here, I was a bit scared because I thought it was going to be really cold. But in fact, it is nice and warm. I just wanted to start well and finish better than I did last time.

‘This definitely gives me a lot of self-confidence because after the last competitions, I needed this. But I learned something from the past competitions. I just needed to run, did not have anything to lose. I just tried my best to finish strong.

‘This is what I needed before Tokyo. I think we are going back to training now to work on the last details we have been training for a long time. I train in Spain and it is on my coach now,’ she said post-race.