Omanyala: I have learnt from last season's mistakes

Once bitten, twice shy.

Africa’s fastest man outdoor Ferdinand Omanyala seems keen on drawing lessons from last season as he prepares for the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Glasgow, Scotland from March 1-3.

Omanyala, who is fresh from breaking his 60-metre indoor national record in France, will neither make any promises or predictions, nor get bothered by what his opponents are doing.

Omanyala said he is at a perfect place and more in love with training than competing unlike before.

“I don’t want to give predictions since my focus is on handling each day as it comes,” says Omanyala, adding that his target is to execute well in Glasgow as he makes his second appearance at the World Indoors.

“I have no expectations in Glasgow where I want to bag each day as it comes...I am ready and looking forward to it,” said Omanyala, who reached the semi-finals of his 600m race on debut at the 2022 World Indoors in Belgrade, Serbia

“That is why I also won’t talk about the Olympics or any other race coming after the World Indoor now,” explained Omanyala, who broke his 60metres indoor national record, when he retained the Meeting de Paris Indoor title in 6.51 seconds on February 11 in the French capital.

Omanyala, 28, had 10 days earlier shattered the record at the Elite Indoor Track Miramas Meeting in France by 0.1 seconds, winning in 6.52.

World 100m champion Noah Lyles of the United States of America has the fastest time in 600m this year of 6.41 from his victory at Albuquerque, Convention Center in USA where he beat Christian Coleman to second place in 6.44 on February 17.

Omanyala’s time is ranked ninth in the world this year. 

“You all know what happened at the World Championships in Budapest where I was disappointed, almost resulting in a mental breakdown,” said Omanyala, hence the move to change coaches from Duncan Ayiemba to Geoffrey Kimani.

Omanyala noted that in the last two seasons, he picked up early in the season, but couldn’t maintain the form towards the end of the season, which affected him, hence the results at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest where he reached the final only to finish seventh in the 100m.

“You know time is not on my side as far as my talent is concerned. I believed that I wouldn't be in athletics for long, hence I needed to maximise the time and opportunities. 

“I thought I would lose at some point, that is why I had to make changes going into the Olympic year,” explained Omanyala, who didn’t want to go to the Paris Olympics with doubts about his training program.

“I give credit to Ayiemba for what he did to me.”

Omanyala also said that he hated training and wanted something new for inspiration.

“That time I always looked forward to competing rather than training but that has changed,” explained Omanyala, adding that he is more focused on getting better in training, which culminates in good racing.

Omanyala revealed that Kimani has designed a program for every member of his training group.

“Everybody is doing and meeting their targets unlike before. That makes everyone work hard and be competitive. There is no showboating,” said Omanyala.

However, Omanyala revealed that it wasn’t a walk in the park adopting Kimani's tough training program that almost saw him thrown in the towel. 

“My first week with Kimani was tough. I had never puked in a training session but I did it when we went for the hill and tarmac sessions…at some point, I called an ambulance after seeing the clouds almost coming down on me,” said Omanyala with a telling laugh.

“Had to be stronger since I was doing something that I had not done before but I can now smile since I now know the benefits and it can only get better,” said Omanyala.    

KImani said the first thing he did was to have Omanyala lose weight, which he has done dropping from 90kg to 85kg.

“He was running a bit heavy because his program was geared towards adding more muscles but for me, he could get stronger without big muscles,” said Kimani.

Omanyala and Kimani were speaking during NTV’s Monday night live sports show SportOn! hosted by Bernard Ndong and James Wokabi.

Kimani said that he has programmed for his athlete to hit the peak twice this season, at the World Indoor and during the Paris Olympics.

Kimani said Omanyala's progress is impressive based on the winning times at the 2022 World Indoor where Marcell Jacobs won in a photo-finish beating Christian Coleman as they both clocked  6.41 with Marvin Bracy settling for bronze in 6.44.

“Omanyala did 6.22 and 6.52 in Miramas and 6.57 and 6.51 in Paris with ease, which is indicative that he can produce quality runs,” said Kimani, adding that the priority for any sprinter is speed. 

“Omanyala should be the fastest 30m runner in the world...acceleration sets you for high speed, which is an ideal situation for sprinters," said Kimani, hastening that their main goal remains the Paris Olympic Games. 

Kiamani describes Omanyala as a super-talented athlete who should have hit the ceiling early and regrets that Kenyan athletes hang their running shoes early.

"Ideally, sprinters should hit the peak at 26 before reaching the sunset at 35," said Kimani.