Ferdinand Omanyala is a Kenyan athlete who enjoys the privilege of being recognised as Africa’s fastest man and the 9th fastest man of all time.
Omanyala is a short-distance runner and participates in 60, 100 & 200-metre races.
The prolific athlete has been crowned the fastest man in Africa after clocking a time of 9.77 at the Kip Keino Classic in 2021.
Throughout his career, Omanyala has been able to bag several medals.
In 2022, he won his first international championship, recording a win in the 100-metre race at the Commonwealth Games.
Omanyala began his athletics career in 2015 at a time when he was a chemistry student at the University of Nairobi.
He made the transition after a friend noticed his speed while he was playing rugby.
It did not take long after he transitioned from rugby to track for him to participate in a competitive race, setting a time of 10.4 s in his first Athletics Kenya (AK) meet in Kakamega.
In his first year as an athlete, Omanyala won the national Olympic trials in the 100 m race recording a time of 10.37 s. However, he fell short of the qualifying threshold for the Olympics which was 10.16 s at the time.
He has however since emerged stronger from that setback and now stands tall as the undisputed fastest man in the continent.