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The experienced sprints coach feels Africa’s fastest man still needs to improve on two key areas if he has to claim a medal at the World Championships.
Ferdinand Omanyala’s former coach Stephen Mwaniki has advised him to polish up his take-off which he feels has been letting him down in the Diamond League Meetings.
Omanyala has featured in three Diamond League races so far this season, coming third in Rabat before back-to-back second-place finishes in Florence and Paris respectively.
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His first Diamond League Meeting this season was in Rabat, Morocco where he finished third.
In the three races, he has been slow off the blocks, eating into his time and distance needed to catch up with his rivals, and the experienced sprints coach feels it is an area that he must improve on.
“That takeoff speed is very important and he can achieve it in several ways. More importantly, you use your starting blocks and you do 20 or 30 metres, the other thing is to look for a short hill to work on it, there is also something called sledge where you pull something from behind which doesn’t go even 40 metres,” Mwaniki told Pulse Sports.
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The tactician's comment comes after the sprinter came second in the Paris Diamond League.
“Power training is also very important in the gym because it gives you that explosiveness from the block.
“So, he needs to advance whatever he has been using. However, I have seen him using sledge, work on his starts, but he needs to be very aggressive from the start.
“He also needs to keep working on his top end speed, doing 120m or 150m which gives him that velocity and endurance.”
Omanyala clocked an identical 10.05 to finish third in Rabat behind Fred Kerley and South African Akani Simbine before improving to second in Florence behind the American world champion.
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Omanyala returned to the Diamond League Meetings this year since 2021 where he competed at the Meeting in Brussels and finished fourth.
He recorded his first sub-10 in the Diamond League in Paris last Friday when he timed 9.98 behind American Noah Lyles (9.97) in a star-studded race that also had Olympic champion Marcel Jacobs of Italy.
In the three races, Omanyala’s style or running has also not completely impressed Mwaniki, who identified another area of weakness that he feels could even cost him a medal at the World Championships in August.
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“He doesn’t need to lose his form running because if you look at him, he is like when he is coming for the finish, he looks like he is destabilising,” Mwaniki added.
“If you look at Noah Lyles’ style of running, you like his continuous running and range of motion, no swinging either side, just attacking and moving straight.
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“To be able to run the shortest distance, the best way of achieving it is running straight. So, he has to avoid wobbling and if he gets all these things right, then definitely he is on podium in Budapest.”
Omanyala has plenty of time to work on the weaknesses identified by his former coach as he is set to take a seven-week break to tune up for the World Championships.
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