Budapest23: Monaco final stop for history-chasing Omanyala

Africa's 100m record holder Ferdinand Omanyala says he is going for nothing but gold in Budapest when he lines up for the World Championships.

Omanyala will be making a second appearance on the world championships stage after his turmoil-laden 2022 outing that saw him arrive in Oregon barely hours to his heat and did not go past the semis.

As part of his preparations for Budapest where he is a medal prospect, the 24-year-old will be competing in his last Diamond League (DL) race in Monaco. 

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He will go up against Ackeem Blake, the fourth fastest man this season, the man Omanyala dethroned as African record holder Akani Simbine and World Under-20 record holder Letsile Tebogo who have so fat been confirmed for the 21 July race.

A confident Omanyala lined up for the Kenyan trials, clocking 9.85 seconds for the win, a time that has him convinced his target of going sub 9.7 second is very much viable. 

"I have put in a lot of work in training in the last three weeks. Running 9.85 seconds is a bit of a surprise because we weren't expecting that as we had concentrated more on loading. It means the target of running 9.6 seconds is closer," the Commonwealth Games 100m champion said. 

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His time of 9.84 seconds achieved in winning the Kip Keino Classic in May remains the second best time of the season, only bettered by Zharnel Hughes who ran 9.83 seconds last month in New York. 

Always know for his confidence, Omanyala responded "I am also one of the big boys now, so I am just going to do what I have been doing before," asked how he would handle the world championships that are barely 38 days away. 

"I have been in the DL series and taken on the same athletes I am going to compete against in Budapest. I have seen some have already pulled out of the championship we are going for nothing but gold," Omanyala added with a chuckle. 

He heads to his fourth DL of the season, having competed in Rabat (Morocco), Florence (Italy) and Paris (France) finish third in Rabat and second in the other two. 

Omanyala disputed the notion that his take offs were slow and thus a problematic area that he needed to work on. "It is not an issue. It has improve since I have competed in a fee 60-meter dashes this year so I am not worrying about that."