Ferdinand Omanyala’s Diamond League snub: What really is happening?

He is the fastest man over 100m in the world this year. He is the African champion and African record holder. He is the 8th fastest man over the distance, separated from Usain Bolt by some fractions of a second.

He is arguably the hottest male sprint asset south of Sahara. He’s Ferdinand Omurwa Omanyala but sadly, he’s conspicuously absent from elite division of athletics – The Wanda Diamond League. Seven legs into the track and field circuit with four 100m men races staged in Birmingham, Oregon, Rome and Oslo and Omanyala is nowhere to be seen.

The charming 26-year-old stopped the clock at 9.85 to claim World Athletics accredited Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi on 7th May 2022 at Kasarani stadium, Nairobi, Kenya. In his wake was among other highly rated US sprinter Fred Kerley who has gone ahead to win the Rome Golden Gala clocking 9.92.

None among the winners in Diamond League circuit has come close to matching Omanyala’s time. Actually, only two other athletes have run sub 9.90 seconds over 100m this year. Oblique Seville and and Micah Williams both clocked 9.85 second in 21st May and 27th May and that has been it.

Victories in the Diamond League include 10.13 by Canadian Aaron Brown in Birmingham, 9.93 by Trayvon Bromell in Oregon, 9.92 by Kerley and Andre De Grasse’s 10.05 in Oslo.

While Omanyala’s contemporaries have enjoyed the spotlight in track and field’s elite competitions, the father of one is reduced to racing in nondescript competitions.

The effect is immense, a steady reduction of pace owing to lack of worthy competition. While the Likes of Kerley have pulled up due to the stiffness of opposition in the elite field, Omanyala is waning. And could be off the pace come World Championships later in the USA.

Since running the world leading 9.85 in May Omanyala has recorded 10.11 at the Castiglione International Meeting in Italy, 10.23 at the 24 Internationale Leitchtathletik Meeting in Germany and 10.14 at the same meet.

He then strung 10.05, 10.07 and 9.93 in the African Championships staged in Mauritius. The silence over his big omission from the elite world of athletics could carry adverse psychological weights on the sprinter.

His handlers have a huge task getting Omanyala into the elite division of track and field for a realistic chance to bag just his second individual championship medal after his recent feat at the African Championships.