Ferdinand Omanyala confirmed for highly-anticipated clash against Christian Coleman & Ackeem Blake

Ferdinand Omanyala confirmed for highly-anticipated clash against Christian Coleman & Ackeem Blake

Abigael Wafula 13:14 - 03.05.2024

Commonwealth Games champion Ferdinand Omanyala has been confirmed for a clash against Christian Coleman and Ackeem Blake among other sprint stars.

Africa’s fastest man Ferdinand Omanyala has been confirmed for his first Diamond League Meeting of the season where he will be going up against fellow sprinters from the US and Jamaica.

Omanyala will launch his 100m campaign at the Diamond League Meeting in the US, the Prefontaine Classic scheduled for Saturday, May 25.

He has great memories of Hayward Field since that’s where he ended his 2023 season, with a third-place finish behind World Indoor 60m champion Christian Coleman and triple World champion Noah Lyles.

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Coleman, the 60m world record holder claimed the Diamond Trophy over 100m last year by equalling the world lead of 9.83 and he will lock horns with Omanyala one more time after the World Indoor Championships.

Jamaica’s World Indoor bronze medallist Ackeem Blake will also be in the mix contesting for his first victory in the Diamond League Meeting this season.

The women’s 100m race will be headlined by reigning World 100m champion Sha’Carri Richardson who will also be hunting for a win at the event.

Richardson is yet to claim top honours in any of her Diamond League Meeting races since opening her season at the Diamond League Meeting in Xiamen.

The American was beaten to second place at the Meeting and later finished third at the Meeting in Shanghai/Suzhou. The race was won by Great Britain’s Daryll Neita who is also an Olympian.

Richardson will be going up against world indoor 60m champion Julien Alfred of St Lucia and African record-holder Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast.

The men’s 200m will see Erryon Knighton, Letsile Tebogo and Kenny Bednarek going head to head. Knighton took silver in the 200m at last year’s World Championships.

On his part, Botswana’s Tebogo will be looking to extend his winning streak at the event following his back-to-back world U20 titles over 100m in 2021 and 2022. He then claimed world 100m silver and 200m bronze in Budapest last year.

Bednarek claimed Olympic silver in 2021 and followed it with world silver in 2022 and he will be hoping to build up on his win at the Kip Keino Classic where he silenced two-time champion Omanyala.

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