Omanyala ends his 2024 season as the second-fastest man.

When Ferdinand Omanyala started the 2024 season, he was sure about making it to the Diamond League Meeting final but encountered some setbacks during the season that prevented him from achieving the goal.

In an interview with CNN journalist Larry Madowo, Africa’s fastest man revealed that some meet organisers barred him from competing in their Diamond League due to a previous ban from the Athletics Integrity Unit.

Omanyala served a 14-month suspension in 2017 after testing positive for the banned substance betamethasone. He attributed this to receiving treatment for a back injury at the time.

Due to his inability to compete in enough Diamond League Meetings, Omanyala couldn’t accrue sufficient points to qualify for the final and had to run in an invitational meet instead. 

“A win is a win…I was expected to run yesterday but there was no open lane because we did not get enough points. Some organisers told us that we had a previous ban we couldn’t run in their Diamond League, so we couldn’t get enough points to run yesterday (the men’s 100m Diamond League final),” Omanyala said.

Despite this, Omanyala expressed his enthusiasm for ending the season on a high note, winning the invitational race with a time of 10.07 seconds.

Although he acknowledged that the competition in the invitational race was not as strong as in the Diamond League, Omanyala was grateful for the opportunity and aimed to learn from his win to have a better season next year. 

Reflecting on the challenges of the 2024 season, Omanyala emphasized his resilience in bouncing back amid adversity.

“I’m glad that we were given a chance today to run the invitational. I mean, it’s been nice, it’s been great, it’s just that the competition wasn’t that much. It’s always nice to compete and just get the lessons out and pick them for the next season,” Omanyala said.

“We are done because this was the last race of the season so we are looking forward to next year, it’s been one hell of a season but this season has been like a ball, when a ball is thrown up, it has to come down eventually but it depends on where it will land. If it lands on water, then that is it but if it lands on land, then it comes back up. We have to push this until we get more guys from Kenya doing sprints.”

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