Omanyala headlines African stars confirmed for 2024 FBK Games in Hengelo
African 100m record holder and second fastest man in the world this year, Ferdinand Omanyala will headline the African challenge at the 2024 Fanny Blankers-Koen, FBK Games on Sunday baring any last minute changes.
Omanyala who ran 9.79 to move top of the 2024 world list in the 100m event before Kishane Thompson ran 200th of a second faster (9.77) at the Jamaican National Championships last Friday
will be seeking to go faster as he looks to reach his best form ahead of the Paris Olympic Games.
The Kenyan will race against fellow Africans, Emmanuel Eseme of Cameroon and Richardson Benjamin of South Africa as well as reigning Tokyo Olympics 200m champion and 100m bronze medalist, Andre De Grasse, 2011 world 100m champion, Yohan Blake of Jamaica and Japan’s Sani Brown Abdul Hakim.
Nigeria’s Samuel Ogazi, Nene Zakithi of South Africa and Botswana’s Kebinatshipi Busang Collen will compete in the 400m event while the Ethiopian duo of Alemayehu Gete and Molla Birtukan as well as Uganda’s Nanyondo Winnie will race in the women’s 10,000m.
The annual track and field event which is a World Athletics Continental Tour gold meeting is organized in memory of Fanny Blankers-Koen who won four gold medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London.
She competed there as a 30-year-old mother of two, earning her the nickname ‘the Flying Housewife’, and was the most successful athlete at the event.
