Omanyala sprints into action today in Belgrade

Ferdinand Omanyala wins the 100m final during the 3rd Athletics Kenya Track and Field championship held at Nyayo national stadium in Nairobi on March 05, 2022.[Stafford Ondego, Standard]

Africa’s 100m record holder Ferdinand Omanyala will headline the second day of World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia today.

Omanyala has had an outstanding indoor season that saw him run 6.57 seconds three weeks ago to finish fourth at the Meeting Hauts-de- France Pas-de-Calais in Lievin, France.

The time still stands as the national record, but he faces a huge task as he seeks to medal at the three-day indoor showpiece in the men’s 60m.

He will lineup in heat six of the preliminaries at 12:45pm alongside Poland’s Adrian Brzezinski who boosts of the same Personal Best (PB) time as the Kenyan.

Also in the heat is Jamaican Nigel Ellis who has a PB of 6.72, Barbadian Mario Burke is also in the mix and boosts of the fastest time of 6.55 seconds.

100m Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs of Italy, USA’s Christian Coleman who arrived in Serbia as the defending champion are some of the top names that Omanyala will face.

“It’s a huge field, and I’m looking forward to a fantastic event tomorrow (today),” Omanyala said.

Meanwhile, Eglay Nalianya and Naomi Korir will carry the country’s flag in the women’s 800m event as they battle to progress to tomorrow’s finals.

Noah Kibet (1:48.31) made to the final of the men’s 800m after winning his heat and has promised to run 1:46.0 in the final today.

“I’m well prepared for this championships and was sure of winning my first race easily. The main goal for me was to reach the final, where I’ll try to do my best and to set a new indoor PB. I trained hard and physically I’m ready to go under 1:46.0,” Kibet said.

Kenyan duo of Daniel Simiu and Jacob Krop all sailed through to the final after they both finished second in their respective men’s 3000m heats yesterday.

Simiu timed 7:54.97 to finish second behind Mark Scot ( 7:54.90) of  Great Britain in heat two. Belgium’s Isaac Kimeli finished third in 7:55.75.

Krop running in heat one clocked 7:46.43 in second place with Ethiopian Lamecha Girma wining the event in 7:46.21.

Talbi Zouhair of Morocco was third in 7:48.03. The final will be held tomorrow. 

Elsewhere, up until last month, Lazaro Martinez had never competed indoors.

But in the space of the past five weeks, the Cuban triple jumper won the World Indoor Tour and has now earned gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships.

Although he had the leading mark of all the entrants, Martinez wasn’t considered the pre-event favourite as he was up against the likes of Olympic champion Pedro Pichardo and defending world indoor champion Will Claye, both proven championship performers.

Indeed, Pichardo and Claye both raised their game and produced their longest jumps of the year, but Martinez proved to be too strong on the day.

His opening-round leap of 17.64m held up as the best mark of the competition, despite Pichardo’s best efforts to dethrone the 24-year-old Cuban.

Just minutes after Martinez’s first-round effort, Pichardo opened with 17.42m, while Claye went out to 17.05m to move into third place.

Pichardo then improved slightly to 17.46m in round two, consolidating his second-place position.

In round three, Martinez jumped 17.32m – still beyond his pre-competition outright PB.

USA’s Donald Scott, meanwhile, moved into a medal position with a season’s best of 17.21m.

Martinez produced another big leap in round four, breaking the sand at 17.62m.

Claye tried his best to get back among the medals and improved to 17.19m in round five, but it wasn’t enough to catch his teammate Scott, who earned his first major championships medal.