Cyréna Samba-Mayela

Cyréna Samba-Mayela (born 31 October 2000) is a French athlete who competes in the 60 metres hurdles and 100 metres hurdles.

She won the gold medal in the 60 m hurdles at the 2022 World Indoor Championships.

She was a silver medalist at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships where she lowered the current French national record to 7.73 seconds.

Samba-Mayela holds European under-18 bests in the 60 m and 100 m hurdles (76.2 cm).

Samba-Mayela won the gold medal in the medley relay at the 2016 European Youth Athletics Championships, running the 100 metres leg in Tbilisi.

She won silver medals for the 100 m hurdles at the 2017 World U18 Championships and 2021 European U23 Championships.

In 2017, she was the World U18 Championship 100 m hurdles silver medallist in Nairobi.

She was crowned French senior champion in the 60 m hurdles indoors in 2020 in Liévin.

On 12 September that year, she won the French outdoor championship at the Stadium Municipal, Albi, running the 100 m hurdles in a time of 12.73, the fastest ever time by a European teenager, and the eighth-fastest French woman ever.

In 2020 it was the fourth-fastest time by a woman in the world.

Shortly prior to this, she had claimed victories over quality international line-ups in Chorzów and Marseille.

In Madrid, on June 19, 2021, Samba-Mayela took victory in 12.80 seconds in the 100 m hurdles to meet the Olympic minimum standard for the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Unfortunately, an injury during the warm-up pre-race prevented her Olympic debut.

In 2022, she won the gold medal for the 60 m hurdles at the World Indoor Championships held in Belgrade, Serbia, setting a French national record of 7.78 seconds.

Devynne Charlton took silver in 7.81 s while the third-placed Gabbi Cunningham clocked 7.87 s.

In August 2023, she competed at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest and qualified for the semi-finals.

She was a silver medalist at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow in the 60 metres hurdles.

Born in France, Samba-Mayela is of Congolese descent.