Ferdinand Omanyala lays bare 2024 Paris Olympics plans

Africa 100 metres record holder Ferdinand Omanyala aims to double up at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

Omanyala, the Africa and Commonwealth Games 100m champion, said he has exorcised the fear of curves and will compete in 200m too next season.

Thanks to his new coach, Geoffrey Kimani, who opined that being good in 200m will give Omanyala quality range, robustness and endurance to run quality 100m races.

“My fear was the problematic left knee, which made running at the curve or doing squats in the gym difficult and painful,” said Omanyala, who added that the discomfort has gone.

“My coach even talked about trying out 400m and it was a big laugh,” explained Omanyala, stating that things will turn out well if he trains well and has proper nutrition.

“I am really looking towards competing and qualifying in the 200m at the Paris Olympics Games. That is an event I am going to push for next season since my knee is ok, I am more agile and my hips are flexible,” disclosed Omanyala, who starts the next phase of what he described as "special endurance" in the 200m curves next week.

Omanyala, who has a career best of 9.77 seconds in 100m, noted that what inspires him is the time he ran personal best of 20.33 in 200m at last year’s Kenya National Athletics Championships.

Omanyala clocked 20.33 in the semi-finals before striking 20.43 to capture the national title last year and is ready to beat the 2024 Paris Olympic Games qualifying standards of 20.16 in 200m.

“That is a fast time that no Kenyan has come close to,” said the 27-year-old Omanyala, who intends to cut down on his races in the new season to less than 30 after running 37 times last season.

“First things first, let me be judged by how I perform in 200m races next season,” said Omanyala.

“It has been five weeks since I resumed training and I feel like I am in June...I feel lighter, faster and stronger, having cut almost three kilogrammes,” said Omanyala, who now weighs 86kg.

The 27-year-old said that at a similar period last year, he was weighing 89kg with a lot of heavy weights lifting, gym sessions and long runs.

“We still are doing that but differently with the endurance part being key. There are different parts of energies in the body and we are working on all of them unlike before where we focused on one at ago,” said Omanyala.

Kimani said that training volumes for 200m are much higher than 100m which will give Omanyala a strong base and endurance to run quality times in 100m.

Kimani and Omanyala were speaking during the open media session at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, yesterday.

“The fear he had in 200m was pyschological and the reason we write these programmes is for injury prevention more than the improvement in physical qualities,” said Kimani, noting that sprints are a matter of techniques and a game of small margins.

Kimani said they need to understand where they stand, their weakness and strengths, considering that tight biomechanics define athletes.

“Omanyala wanted to improve his mobility and flexibility. Clearly you can see he has lost some weight. You can still have lean muscles but stay strong and agile,” said Kimani.

The veteran coach explained that they are doing a lot of aerobics work to form the base so that the gas is still in the tank to recover fast when they start specific work next week.

Kimani noted that those who medalled at the Budapest World Athletics Championships in July had dropped from 200m.

Noah Lyles, who won both the 100m and 200m titles in Budapest, had claimed gold in 200m at 2019 Doha and 2022 Eugene world championships.

"I have been with Omanyala for five weeks and he only wen for physiotherapy on the fourth week unlike before when he did in every other week," Kimani said, stating that they did the tests early, picking up issues bugging the sprinter before drawing a plan.

Omanyala has also resumed classes at the University of Nairobi, where he is a third year Bachelor of Science in Chemistry student.

"Part of my training programme is for him to go back to school and complete his degree," said Kimani, noting that the college environment will form part of the athlete's healing therapy.