Africa’s fastest man Ferdinand Omanyala failed to deliver again when pitted against some of the world’s best following his seventh-place finish at the Rome Diamond League.
Omanyala clocked 10.08 seconds for seventh place in Rome in a race won by Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo, who delivered a 9.87 performance in style.
Tebogo started celebrating with 20m to go after learning that he had got the better of Americans Christian Coleman, who timed 9.92 for second place, and Fred Kerley, whose 9.95 yielded third place.
It was a star-studded field that also included former Olympics champion and home favourite Marcell Jacobs, who finished last in 10.20, with Jamaican Ackeem Blake, 10.03 for fourth place, also in the race.
Jamaican Kishane Thompson, the world’s fastest man this year, pulled out a day before the event.
The eighth place and slower time came less than a week after Omanyala clocked an impressive 9.88 for second place behind Kerley in Silesia last Sunday. Blake and Jacobs were also in the race.
Omanyala appears to bring out his best when not faced by multiple formidable opponents given his most impressive performances have come when the field is not overly staked.
His first sub-10 of the season came at the Prefontaine Classic in May when he clocked 9.98 behind Coleman (9.95), with Blake the other top name in the race, while he set the world’s fastest time of 9.78, now the second fastest, at the Kenyan Olympics trials in Nairobi in June.
Any hopes of replicating it at the Olympics did not bear fruit as his journey ended at the semi-finals. Omanyala started by easily qualifying from his first-round heat, clocking 10.08, but the semi-final put him alongside Thompson, Kerley, Canadian Andre De Grasse and Briton Zharnel Hughes.
He could only manage eighth place in another 10.08 time to end his Olympics on a sour note.
This had been witnessed once more at the 2023 World Championships when he made it into the finals as one of the two fastest losers but failed to make amends, coming home in seventh place, despite a promising season that saw him record some fast times.
It leaves fans wondering what happens when Omanyala faces the crème dela crème of global sprinting as he needs impressive times and performances in a star-studded field to stamp his authority and also send a message to his rivals while boosting his confidence.
Failing to rise to the occasion against multiple high calibre opponents could therefore leave him with a psychological disadvantage that could be the difference between success and failure.
