Sprint to nowhere? Ferdinand Omanyala’s Olympic dilemma

Ferdinand Omanyala flies back home from Lagos on the eve of Good Friday, hoping that the Easter holidays will bear good tidings for him.

Kenya’s 100 metres champion is on a roll.

He recently landed a fairly good sponsorship deal with a betting company and his star has been on a steady rise.

The University of Nairobi student travelled to Nigeria seeking a qualification time in the sprints for the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer, and he nailed it!

With the Olympic qualifying standard set at 10.05 seconds, Omanyala sprinted to a Kenya national record 10.01 seconds in his semi-final victory at the BetKing Making of Champions Grand Prix at Yabatech Sports Complex in Lagos on Tuesday.

Running out of Lane Two, Omanyala had already left his rivals for dead at the 50-metre mark, gliding past the finish line with a two-metre lead from the second-place finisher, a huge gap in sprints standards.

Omanyala's sizzling performance saw him erase Mark Otieno's previous national record 10.14 set in 2017.

And moments later, Omanyala powered to win the final, clocking a wind-assisted in 10.05 sec (+2.7m/s), beating defending champion Enoch Adegoke from Nigeria to second place.

Adegoke put in a good battle as he went toe-to-toe with Omanyala, who eventually prevailed in a photo-finish.

Favour Ashe, who had qualified for the Nairobi World Under-20 Championships due for August 17 to 22 at Kasarani, clocked a personal best 10.07 seconds for third place.

Omanyala had on January 29 this year shattered the national record, clocking 10.11 seconds during the National Relay Series, but was judged to have been wind-assisted.

Otieno and Omanyala faced off in the semi-final and final during the second leg of Athletics Kenya Track and Field Meeting on March 12 to 13 at Kasarani.

Otieno would reign supreme over Omanyala, winning on both occasions.

He beat Omanyala in the semi-final, winning in 10.17 against 10.32 first, and then 10.24 against 10.40 in the final.

Omanyala’s performance in Lagos this week, if ratified, will mean that he will be a joint fourth on this season’s world lead list, jointly with Antigua’s Cajhae Greene who also clocked 10.01 in Miami on March 20.

Only three athletes have been faster this year, namely USA’s Ronnie Barker (9.94), Ghana’s Benjamin Azamati-Kwaku (9.97) and South Africa’s Akani Simbine (9.99).

“I’m done here! I came to qualify for the Olympics and I did. So I hope I will now get the chance to run at the Olympics,” he said from Lagos, with cautious optimism.

“I will be back home tomorrow (Thursday) and resume training next week.”

Omanyala, 24, is cautiously optimistic because a dark cloud still hangs over his head.

Because the doping ghost from 2017 still haunts the Bachelor of Science student at the College of Biological and Physical Sciences.

Omanyala was banned for 14 months for a doping offence by the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (Adak) in 2017.

Took AK to court

He responded by taking Athletics Kenya (AK) to the Sports Dispute Tribunal after he was barred from taking part in AK events in the country.

He was allowed to compete locally.

AK had indicated that any athlete reprimanded for a doping offence will never get to represent Kenya in any championship event, a move that the government strongly backed.

While the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has advocated for stiffer punishment that has seen World Athletics ban offenders for up to eight years or lifetime, it doesn’t bar those who have served their ban to represent their respective countries.

After all, stars like USA’s Justin Gatlin have re-invented themselves from sanctions to win world titles!

Get banned at your risk

However, Wada has given countries a leeway to introduce their own laws to curb the menace.

And Kenya’s stance is that once banned, no national colours.

AK Senior Vice President Paul Mutwii, who is in charge of competitions, said athletes coming from doping bans can compete in local and international events but won’t get selected to represent the country in international assignments.

“Our stand still remains. They can compete in any other international events but not in Kenyan colours. We won’t select them for championship events at the moment,” said Mutwii in a past interview.

Backed by sponsorship from betting company Odibets, Omanyala was able to travel to Lagos to clinch the qualifying standard and feels sprinters need further exposure.

"We Kenyan sprinters need to go out and compete to improve ourselves. We need more International meetings," said Omanyala, who attributed his performance to good pre-season training he had with the Kenya Sevens rugby team in November and December.

Omanyala now targets to run sub-10 seconds in the coming months after attaining the Olympic qualifying mark and national record.

But the ghosts of the doping ban still hang over his head, and he hopes he can exorcise them before the Tokyo Olympics get underway on July 23.

“I hope they will hear my plea,” is Omanyala’s Easter holidays wish.

Will they?