Sunday evening was the moment of truth for Kenyan sensational sprinter, Ferdinand Omanyala, to walk his talks of clinching the 100 meters Gold title at the ongoing World Athletics Championships.
Omanyala was having a terrific build up season prior to the global spectacle. However, during the preliminary rounds of the 100 meters in Budapest, things seemed not to be moving as expected.
This became evident during the semi-finals where Omanyala qualified to the finals by the skin of his teeth. He had to wait for intense few minutes to know whether he had qualified.
“It was the toughest short time because I never knew I could get to the final. But we did what we had to do.” He offered in a post-match interview.
In the finals, Omanyala couldn’t keep up with the top speeds of the eventual podium finishers; Noah Lyles (Gold), Letsile Tebogo (Silver), and Zharnel Hughes (Bronze).
He finished seventh by clocking an underwhelming time of 10.07.
| POS | BIB | ATHLETE | COUNTRY | MARK | ms* | Reaction Time |
| 1 | 3007 | Noah LYLES | 9.83 =WL | 0.145 | ||
| 2 | 2102 | Letsile TEBOGO | 9.88 NR | .873 | 0.129 | |
| 3 | 2350 | Zharnel HUGHES | 9.88 | .874 | 0.105 | |
| 4 | 2554 | Oblique SEVILLE | 9.88 | .877 | 0.148 | |
| 5 | 2978 | Christian COLEMAN | 9.92 | 0.137 | ||
| 6 | 2587 | Abdul Hakim SANI BROWN | 10.04 | 0.177 | ||
| 7 | 2626 | Ferdinand OMANYALA | 10.07 | 0.152 | ||
| 8 | 2540 | Ryiem FORDE | 10.08 | 0.188 |
After the race he shared the postmortem of the race.
“I would have done better. But I don’t dwell on the past…it’s gone, and we can’t go back in time and change anything. I want to focus and move on. My body wasn’t just firing from the semifinal as it did in the heats. We just have to go back and see what happened and see where to correct and see what to do best next time,” Omanyala said.
