There are still a few goals left to tick off on her 2025 vision board, but it has already been quite the season for pint-sized sprint hurdler Megan Tapper, who goes into the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo with renewed confidence and purpose.

A glistening, new personal best of 12.34 seconds, done twice already this year, puts her closer to the upper echelon of sprint hurdling and is the reward for a fresh approach by the 31-year-old athlete.

Now encouraged by her fast time and national title, the Olympics bronze medal winner says she is eager to push the limits of possibilities.

“I feel relieved about being a 12.3 seconds run; finally! I knew that I was always capable and that Megan Tapper could run that 12.3, it was just that the different things had to come together to make it happen and I am just so grateful, so relieved, so happy that it finally happened,” Tapper told the Jamaica Observer during a break from her preparations ahead of the championships.

However, she is all too aware that, while impressive, her new mark might still not prove enough when the time comes and is determined to take another step forward in Tokyo.

“[Clocking] 12.3 does get me into the final but it doesn’t necessarily get my onto the podium if we are being completely real, but I am working and it’s not going to be easy. I need to get myself into that final first, I haven’t been able to get into an international final in a while, so the point is to just show up even better than I did at trials to put myself in the best position to get on that podium this year,” Tapper said.

Her personal best would have won her the gold medal at the last World Championships in Budapest in 2023, where compatriot Danielle Williams took the gold medal in 12.43 seconds. However, to her point, Tapper would have finished fifth in 2022.

Megan’s time leaves her as the 11th fastest on the planet this season, but she is certain that there is more to come, especially after purposefully building her community in an effort to better support her ambitions.

“I have never been one to limit myself and so I am not limiting what is possible for this season or the rest of my career. I have very audacious dreams. At one point after the Olympics I started to doubt myself and I wondered if that was the end, but I stuck to it and God provided me with the right people to show me that there is more left and I am just tremendously grateful and there are no limits, let’s see, God is good,” Tapper said.

“I have always been an advocate of surrounding yourself with the right people, with people who want to see you win and, for me, at the end of 2024, that was very important. I changed the way how I saw my challenges, I started to attack them from their inception instead of waiting until they became basically insurmountable, and so I sought professionals that I wouldn’t necessarily have access to or be willing to use before.”

“I decided that it was either all in or go home, and I decided that, yes, it was important to ensure that I could take care of the essentials at home and be OK when it came to my life after track, but it was also important to achieve the dreams and goals that I set out for myself and I wasn’t OK with just 12.4 seconds, I knew that I was capable of more and I just decided to put everything into that this year,” Tapper shared.

Tapper, who recently signed a sponsorship deal with adidas, will get into action on Sunday, September 14 at 11:28am (Saturday at 9:28pm Jamaica time) in the 100m Hurdles heats.

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