Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Africa's fastest man, Omurwa Omanyala, shattered the Championship Record of 9.94secs beating defending champ Akani Simbine from SA in a photo-finish.
Sports Brief confirms: ".@Ferdiomanyala is Africa's fastest man after clocking 9.93 secs to bag gold in the 100m race at the African Senior Athletics Championships in Mauritius.
"Omanyala shattered the Championship Record of 9.94secs beating defending champ Akani Simbine from SA in a photo-finish."
Omanyala had the slightest of leads over the final metre, but Simbine delivered the better dip on the line at the Cote d'Or national sports complex in Saint Pierre.
It was impossible to determine the winner with the naked eye and the two men walked arm in arm after the race as they waited a few minutes for the result to come through.
In the end Omanyala was measured at 9.927sec and Simbine 9.930, aided by a heavy tail wind of 4.5 metres per second.
The result gave Omanyala a 3-0 lead in head-to-head contests over Simbine, but the gap was the closest yet and will surely give the South African a measure of confidence as he heads to the world championships in the US next month and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where he will attempt to defend that 100m title against Omanyala in early August.
Fellow South African Henricho Bruintjies took bronze in 10.01, just two-hundredths of a second ahead of Raymond Ekevwo of Nigeria.
Omanyala, the African record holder, won his semi-final race in 10.07 seconds to set up a showdown with defending champion Akani Simbine in the final on Thursday. Omanyala edged out Gilbert Maseko from Namibia to second place in 10.15 seconds as home athlete Noa Bibi came third in 10.24 seconds to qualify among the best losers. Omanyala was eying to emulate the legendary Joseph Gikonyo’s achievement 32 years later by winning the 100 meters and 200 meters titles. Gikonyo sealed the double during the 1990 Cairo Championships. No Kenyan has won the two titles since then.
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