Belgrade 2022: Kibet takes silver in 800m as Omanyala fails to qualify for the 60m final
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Reading Time: 3min | Sat. 19.03.22. | 21:50
Omanyala finished fourth in Heat 2 and did not qualify for the final
On day two of the World Indoor Championship in Belgrade, Kenya got it’s first medal, silver as Noah Kibet finished second in 800m men’s final in 1:46:35, a little over his season’s best (1:46:06) and just behind Spanish Mariano Garcia, who clocked at 1:46:20 for the gold. Bryce Hoppel from the USA tried to catch Kibet but ended up in third place and took the bronze medal. This is Kibet's first medal and he enters history books as the youngest ever World Indoor medalist.
It's gold for Spain in the men's 800m! 🇪🇸
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) March 19, 2022
17-year-old silver medallist Noah Kibet 🇰🇪 becomes the youngest ever #WorldIndoorChamps medallist in an individual track event.
Bronze goes to @BryceHoppel 🇺🇸– his first global medal. pic.twitter.com/ZFjntdCXKp
It was a great race for the 17-year old, who showed poise and confidence immediately the pistol announced the beginning of the race. So young and yet so mature, Kibet started in Lane 1 and after the participants turned the first corner, he was already third and didn’t let go until the very end. At one point it looked that Kibet was not going to make it further up, as he was squeezed in Lane 1, but the Kenyan took the tougher path and ran outside. When the bell announced the last round, he just took off as fast as he could, and the second place was clearly his, no photo finish on this one.
The Kenyan’s silver medalist was equally confident after the race as he announced his goals in the future.
“There was a lot of pressure, but I like to push with big men. This is my first World Indoor championship and I see I have the potential for next year. I’m coming from Belgrade with experience and a silver medal. I’m happy.” Kibet told Mozzart Sport.
Kenyan sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala failed to qualify for the 60M final as he finished as fourth in Heat 1.
The National record holder had to wait until the end of Heat 2 in order to see if he was the ‘lucky loser’, which meant that he could still qualify as one of the fastest, but eventually, even the ‘weakest’ Heat 2 produced faster athletes. Omanyana ran 06:64, which was slower than his results in the qualification earlier today when he clocked 06:62.
In this race, he was actually as fast as the third-placed Andrew Robertson from the United Kingdom, but only fractions of a second decided between third and fourth place. In Heat 2, Karl Nazarov from Estonia and Arthur Cisse from Ivory Coast finished as 3rd and 4th but had a better result than Omanyala (6.57 and 6.59), and even the fifth-placed Stephen Abosi from Botswana was faster (6.61).
After the race, Omanyala was still happy for the experience in his first Indoor Championship and said ‘it was not bad’.
