African 100 metres record holder Ferdinand Omanyala will warm up for his Kip Keino Classic 100m title defence with a 150m race at the Adidas Atlanta City Games at Centennial Olympic Park, United States on Saturday.
At the same time, fresh from breaking her own national record in 400m, Commonwealth Games 800m champion Mary Moraa, has set her sights on winning women’s 800m at the Kip Keino Classic on May 13 in Nairobi.
The Adidas Atlanta City Games will feature 100m, 150m, 100m hurdles and 110m hurdles races on a specially engineered 150m, elevated track inside Atlanta’s Olympic Park.
The meet will also feature a pole vault competition, a 600m road race and the previously announced Adidas Running City Mile.
“I will be doing 150m in this one and I am excited to test my top end speed,” said Omanyala, who won 100m at the Botswana Golden Grand Prix in wind assisted 9.78 seconds (+2.3) at the National Stadium, Gaborone on Saturday.
“It will be a good race for him, away from 100m where he has run enough,” said Omanyala coach Duncan Ayiemba, adding that his athletes’ target of breaking the Africa record at the Kip Keino Stadium remains on course. “The American race is part of his training.”
Omanyala, the Commonwealth Games and Africa 100m champion, will face among others two-time world 200m reigning champion Noah Lyles, who won the 2020 Tokyo Olympics men’s 200m bronze medal.
Also in the race is the world 200m silver medallist Erriyon Knighton also of the US, 2017 world 200m bronze medallist Jereem Richards from Trinidad and Tobago and Briton Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake.
In his latest appearance on track, Lyles dashed to a second place finish in a wind assisted 9.92 (+2.6) at PURE Athletics Spring Invitational on April 23 at the National Training Center, Clermont, Florida.
Lyle, who had won his semi-final in another wind assisted 9.90 (+4.30) the same day, has a season best of 9.95 that he set in his victorious run at Tom Jones Memorial, Percy Beard Track, Gainesville, Florida on April 15.
It’s at the same event where he set his season’s best time of 20.16 in 200m.
Lyle has a season best in 60m indoor of 6.51 from his win at New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston on February 4.
Omanyala stormed to victory in a season best time of 10.05 at ASA Athletics Grand Prix 2, at Germiston Stadium, in Johannesburg on April 19.
The Kenyan flier and has the fastest time in 60m indoor this season of 6.54 from his win at Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais, Levin, France, on February 15.
The great Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt holds the record for the 150m of 14.35.
Lyles owns the fourth fastest time in 150m in history of 14.69 set in 2019, Richards holds the sixth fastest time of 14.75 attained in 2021 while Mitchell-Blake is seventh fastest with a time of 14.81 set in 2018.
This will be the first time that Omanyala is competitively racing in 150m.
As he competes on Saturday, the big question will be whether his form thus far in the season will see him triumph in Nairobi next weekend.
Omanyala has served up an appetizer to his legion of fans promising to lower his African record of 9.77 set when he finished second at the 2021 Kip Keino Classic men’s 100m race won by American Trayvon Bromell in personal best time of 9.76.
Omanyala won last year’s Kip Keino Classic in 9.85, beating Fred Kerley to second place in 9.92 but the American went on to claim the world title in 9.86 in Oregon, US as the East Africa failed to reach the final.
Moraa, 22, clocked 50.44 to win at Botswana Golden Grand Prix, women’s 400m. She run 0.23 seconds inside her previous national record set at the Brussels Diamond League in September. She had then broken her own record three months earlier in Nairobi.
“A record wasn’t on my mind since I was just using the race to polish my speed in the last 200m. I see it turned out well and I thank God for that,” said Moraa, who finished second behind South Africa’s Prudence Sekgodiso at last year’s Kip Keino Classic women’s 800m. BY DAILY NATION