M. KisengeIt is Omanyala against the best in Rabat Diamond League
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Reading Time: 3min | Sun. 28.05.23. | 09:20
Italy’s and Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs withdrew from the race
Commonwealth 100m champion Ferdinand Omanyala will take on a rich field tonight in the Rabat Diamond League series to be held at the Mohammed V Stadium in Morocco.
This will be his second appearance in the Diamond League having debuted in Brussels back in 2021.
Italy’s Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs may have withdrawn from the meeting citing a back-issue postponing what would have been an epic battle pitting him against Omanyala and world champion Fred Kerley of the United States.
In the absence of Jacobs, the Kenyan will be up against Kerley whom he beat in the third edition of the Kip Keino Classic held last year at Kasarani Stadium and a host of other sprinters.
Trayvon Bromell, the 2016 world indoor 60m champion who claimed world 100m bronze in Oregon is also expected to offer competition to Omanyala.
Bromel, beat Omanyala in the 2021 Kip Keino Classic in a hotly contested race that ended up producing the African record and the best time for the latter.
Both Kerley and Bromell have the chance to race for a second Diamond League 100m crown in 2023 – Kerley won his in 2021, while Bromell claimed his last year - and they kick off their campaigns in Rabat.
Former world champion Yohan Blake, world U-20 record holder Letsile Tebogo and former African champion Akani Simbine will also be in the lineup.
“We are going for the gold in Budapest. I am not losing any 100m race this year,” Omanyala told reporters in the pre-race briefing.
Omanyala and the 100m dash is the certainly the highlight of the day but other Kenyan athletes will also be in action on the track.
Moroccan home favourite Soufiane El Bakkali will hope to put on a show in his first 3000m steeplechase race since the Diamond League Final in Zurich last year.
El Bakkali was among the five finalists for the Men’s World Athlete of the Year honour in 2022, a year in which he became world champion, won the Diamond League title and remained unbeaten.
Among his winning performances was the 7:58.28 world lead he set in Rabat – his second-quickest ever time behind the 7:58.15 PB he recorded in Monaco in 2018.
Speaking ahead of the World Athletics Awards in December, El Bakkali again voiced his career goal of breaking the world record of 7:53.63 that was set by Saif Saaeed Shaheen in 2004.
Whether he goes for it on Sunday or uses the event more to test his steeplechase form after a 3000m PB of 7:33.87 in Doha, the certainty is that he won’t want to lose on home soil.
Looking to challenge him will be Kenya’s two-time world and 2016 Olympic gold medalist Conseslus Kipruto and Ethiopia’s world and Olympic fourth-place finisher Getnet Wale, as well as Kenya’s Commonwealth Games champion Abraham Kibiwot and Leonard Bett, who finished second and third respectively at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Nairobi earlier this month.
Another world and Olympic champion is in action in the men’s 800m, as Kenya’s Emmanuel Korir takes to the track along with his compatriots Wyclife Kinyamal and Emmanuel Wanyonyi, plus Canada’s Marco Arop and Morocco’s Moad Zahafi.
World indoor 1500m record-holder Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia, who ran 4:16.16 for the mile and 8:16.69 for 3000m indoors in February, makes her outdoor season debut in a race also featuring her compatriot Freweyni Hailu and Australia’s Linden Hall.
In the women’s 800m, Australia’s world leader Catriona Bisset, who ran 1:58.32 in April, races Kenya’s reigning Diamond League champion Mary Moraa, who clocked 1:58.83 to win in Nairobi earlier this month, plus Natoya Goule, Anita Horvat and Noelie Yarigo, who races her first 800m of the season after an indoor breakthrough.
Additional reporting by World Athletics
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