Omanyala misses World Indoor medal as Coleman outshines Lyles

Kenya’s sprinting ace Ferdinand Omanyala missed out on a first world indoor 60m medal as he finished in fourth place in the ongoing World Indoor Championships being held in Glasgow, Scotland.

Having clocked two personal bests within one week over the distance back in February, Omanyala headed to the event in confident form as he looked to improve on the 6.51 seconds personal best he had managed in France.

He timed 6.51 and 6.52 in the heats and semis respectively as the African 100m record holder booked his spot in the star-studded final alongside USA’s duo Christian Coleman and Noah Lyles as well as Jamaica’s Ackeem Blake.

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That trio proved too hot to handle in the final as Coleman clinched gold in 6.41, clocking the fastest time run this season and 0.2 faster than he had ever recorded as Lyles and Blake settled for silver and bronze after clocking 6.44 and 6.46 respectively.

Omanyala was left to settle for the best position among the rest as he finished in fourth place after stopping the clock at 6.56.

Cameroon’s Emmanuel Eseme, who had set consecutive national records of 6.54 and 6.52 in reaching the final, was unable to progress further, settling for sixth place in 6.68 behind Sweden’s Henrik Larsson.

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Coleman commented: “I had a lot of confidence in myself coming in. You have to feel confident in yourself. I set my mind on letting my body do what I have been doing in practice and I came out with a win.

I can look forward to the rest of the summer. I've got so many things to work on and I am just looking forward to these opportunities When you get these opportunities, you have got to take them.”

Lyles was left impressed with his performance despite not managing the gold medal he was confident of getting.

“It feels like one of my best performances - 6.44, I'm never going to be dissatisfied with that. Last year I was running 6.51 and this year I've put down multiple 6.4s, and these are not small 6.4s either, I'm deep into 6.4 territory and talking about 6.3 at some point.

“This is all with training that hasn't really changed. It's so exciting because now I finally get to do an outdoor season. The 60m is not my favourite race but now you can't say I'm not one of the greats in it. I'm very excited for Paris because it has all my favourite events,” Lyles said.

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