Michael Johnson predicts Omanyala will be first African to win gold at World Championship
Former World 100m and 200m record holder, American sprinter Michael Johnson has tipped Kenyan star Ferdinand Omanyala to become the first African to win gold medal at the World Athletics Championship.
The 55-year-old Johnson, who retired after winning four Olympic gold medals and eight World Championship gold medals in the span of his career, believes the Kenyan sensation has what it takes to conquer the world in the 100m race.
With Kenya preparing for the World Athletics championship set for Budapest, Hungary from August 19 to 27, the 27-year-old Omanyala is among the athletes who will be expected to lead medal hunts for the East African nation.
His recent performances during African championship and Diamond League, have caught the attention of Johnson, who took to his Twitter handle to predict that the Kenyan super star could write history in the competition in the near future.
“Said it before. I believe Omanyala will be the first African to win a 100m World Champs medal,” Johnson, who held the world and Olympic records in the 200m and 400m, as well as the world record in the indoor 400m, wrote, adding: “His muscular structure provides tremendous power but do any coaches or sport science experts out there think it could become a limiting factor in his ability to sprint efficiently?”
On July 21, Omanyala made history becoming the first Kenyan to win the 100m race at the Monaco Diamond League after clocking 9.92 seconds. Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo finished second with 9.93 in the closely contested race.
The historic win in Monaco came after he had managed to defend his national crown after posting a sub-10 at the National Athletics Championships held at the Nyayo Stadium on Saturday, June 24, 2023.
During the race, the Commonwealth Games champion recorded a 9.96-second display but was able to defend the men’s 100-meter title. Omanyala outsprinted Meshack Babu of the Kenya Defence Forces, who clocked 10.50, while Hesbon Ochieng of the Kenya Prisons finished third after running for 10.58.
Speaking after the race, a confident Omanyala said with eyes on Budapest: “I already qualified for Budapest a long time ago, but it feels nice to have run 9.85 here. It was a surprise, but the focus is on Budapest, and I feel better prepared than I was for Oregon 2022.”
In June 2022, Omanyala became African 100m champion before he was eliminated in the semi-finals of the World Championships held in Eugene, Oregon in July, after arriving at the event only a couple of hours before his first round heat due to visa problems.
In August, he claimed Kenya’s first gold medal at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, becoming the first Kenyan to win gold in the 100-metre race in 60 years. Before heading to the World Championships in Hungary, the African champion will take part in the Josko Lauf Meeting in Austria.
