2023 Diamond League Final: Omanyala gets final chance to prove he’s not all noise

Africa and Commonwealth Games champion, Ferdinand Omanyala will get the final opportunity, this year, to prove he has the big ocassion temperament when he
competes in the 100m final at the 2023 Diamond League final in Eugene, Oregon, USA next weekend.

Omanyala boasted he was going to last month’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary to win the 100m title.

The 27 year old predicated his confidence on his early season form after he ran 9.84 at the Kip Keino Classics in Nairobi in May to shoot to the top of the
event as the world leader.

The Kenyan kept producing impressive performances until he finally won his first Diamond League 100m race at the Herculis EBS in Monaco, France with less
than a month to the Worlds in Budapest.

Omanyala however failed to match words with action in Budapest as he squeezed himself into the final of the 100m through one of the two non-automatic
qualification slots.

In the final, all eyes were on the Kenyan to, at least, be the first African to win a medal in the 100m title in the history of the championships.

Botswana’s Lestile Tebogo took that honour and will be one of the athletes Omanyala will face again next weekend in Eugene, Oregon. The Kenyan holds a 5-1
head to head win over Tebogo.

Omanyala is also up against former World champion, Fred Kerley who has beaten him twice this year and five times overall in head to head meetings as well as
another African, Akani Simbine whom he has beaten seven times in eight encounters.

The Kenyan may have missed the chance to make history in Budapest but can redeem himself in Oregon as the first African man to win the 100m Diamond Trophy in
the history of the competition.