Omanyala seeking to become first man to win 100m in a row in Zagreb since 2020
Amusan is last Nigerian to win Zagreb
Ferdinand Omanyala will be looking to end his season on a high at the Memorial Borisa Hanžekovića 2024, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold event in Zagreb, Croatia after his failure to transfer his pre-Olympics performance to the Paris 2024 Olympic stage.
The Kenyan was the second fastest man (9.79) in the world prior to the Olympics but the 28-year-old could not run inside 10 seconds in Paris and crashed out in the semifinals.
Since the Olympics ended, Omanyala seems to have regained his spark and ran inside 10 seconds twice, first in Austria (9.95) and at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia, Poland where he ran 9.88 to lose by the narrowest of margins to Fred Kerley.
Omanyala is in Zagreb to continue his impressive post Olympics runs and he will be looking to become the first man since Michael Rodgers in 2020 to win the 100m event two times in a row.
The African record holder at 9.77 ran 9.94 to win last year and he will be confident of winning again and will be pushed all the way by reigning African double sprint champion, Joseph Fahnbulleh, the USA trio of Courtney Lindsey, Brandon Hicklin and Kyree King, Canada’s Jerome Blake and Karlo Marcius of Croatia and Great Britain’s Romell Glave.
The last Nigerian to compete in this event in Zagreb was Enoch Adegoke who ran 10.88 to finish seventh.
Tobi Amusan remains the last Nigerian athlete to win in Zagreb. She ran 12.61 to win the 100m hurdles in 2021.
