Ferdinand Omanyala: Africa’s Fastest Man Sets New 60 m Record, Beats Olympic Champion Marcell Lamont Jacobs

• Commonwealth champion Ferdinand Omanyala set a new national record in the 60 metres races
• The fastest man in Africa set the record during a World Indoor Tour meet in France on February 15th
• Omanyala now holds records in the 100 metres and 60 metres races

Ferdinand Omanyala continued with his blistering start to the 2023 season by setting a new national record in the 60 metres race on Wednesday night.

Omanyala floored an elite start list headlined by 100 metres Olympic champion Marcell Lamont Jacobs to record a time of 6.54 seconds at the Lievin World Indoor Tour meet in France.

Jacobs came in second, clocking 6.57 seconds, while Ivorian Arthur Cisse completed the podium finish with a time of 6.59 seconds.

Omanyala suffered from another poor start but hit maximum acceleration once he got off the blocks to cap off another successful meet.

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The African record is currently held by Ghanaian Leonard Myles-Mills, who used a time of 6.45 seconds in 1999. American Christian Coleman is the world record holder with 6.34 seconds.

Omanyala shattered his own record that he set last week when he ran a time of 6.55 seconds in Mondeville. The 27-year-old has enjoyed a successful outing in France, where he has only lost once to Arthur Cisse at the Miramas meet.

World Athletics ratifies records

Earlier, Sports Brief reported that the men's under-20 100-metre world record time in athletics would stand until it is broken.

Promising Botswana sprinter Letsile Tebogo ran the 100m race in the astonishing time of 9.91 seconds at the World Under-20 Championships in Cali, Colombia, last year. World Athletics temporarily suspended this record due to 'technical and timing issues'. Whatever these issues were is a thing of the past, with the record now being ratified by the body.

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Tebogo had already run a then-U20 world record of 9.94 seconds at the World Athletics Senior Championships in Oregon, in the United States of America, which was also ratified alongside Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:01:09 marathon and Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team world records respectively.