The athletics season is almost over. Only the marathons remain to be run. On 1 December, World Athletics will hold its gala to reward the best athletes of the year. In the meantime, Sport News Africa takes a look back at the best moments of African athletes through a series of the most outstanding performances. Five in the women's category and as many in the men's. Today's honour goes to Ferdinand Omurwa Omanyala, a Kenyan who runs very fast. He is the new king of the African sprint.
A Kenyan track and field star and African number one is nothing new. For years now, Kenya has been competing for medals with the biggest nations in the world's biggest athletics competitions. But a Kenyan whose sprinting is not something you find in the streets. In 2021, the general public discovered one: Ferdinand Omurwa Omanyala. The 25-year-old athlete does not just run fast. He is a time-setter. On 18 September in Nairobi, in front of his home crowd, he became the fastest African athlete in history in the 100m, running 9s77. Phenomenal.
Ferdinand Omurwa Omanyala had thus erased the African record of South African Akani Simbine (9s84). The latter had himself improved in July on the African record set by Nigeria's Adetokunbo Fasuba in 2006 (9s86). The Kenyan is thus the only African to run the straight under 9 seconds and 80 hundredths. With this time, the Nairobi native would have been Olympic champion in July. But in Tokyo, he never managed to go under 10 seconds. It was on 14 August in Andorf (Austria) that he managed to break this mythical barrier for the first time, being timed in the same day at 9s86 and then 9s96.
Did you see that?#TheGamePlan pic.twitter.com/7Sfwu5G0SB
— Carol Radull (@CarolRadull) September 18, 2021
Suspicions of doping
However, this meteoric rise of Ferdinand Omurwa Omanyala has raised suspicions of doping on the part of several observers. Firstly, because before 2021, the Kenyan was stuck at 10s31. In less than a year, he will have gained more than 60 hundredths. Enormous. His past does not plead for him. In 2017, when he was only 21 years old, he was suspended for 14 months for using betamethasone. A corticosteroid prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Finally, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has placed Kenya on the red list since 2019. That year, more than 15 Kenyan athletes tested positive for doping substances and were suspended.
Ferdinand Omurwa Omanyala, however, has not been pinned since 2017. And so, until proven otherwise, he is the fastest African in history in the 100m, the 8th fastest in human history.
L’article est apparu en premier sur Sport News Africa.
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