Kenya's 4x100m team at the World Relays in Guangzhou, China/ FILEAfrica’s fastest man, Ferdinand Omanyala, wants to take full charge of Kenya’s men’s 4x100m relay squad, setting an audacious target for the 2026 World Relays Championships in Gaborone, Botswana.
At the World Relays, only the top 24 teams across each event (4x100m men and women, 4x100m mixed, 4x400m men and women and the 4x400m mixed) will qualify for Botswana. The top eight finishers in each relay event from the Tokyo World Championships have already secured automatic slots.
Kenya currently sits 22nd in the men’s 4x100m rankings, courtesy of a 38.35 run clocked in March at the 2025 World Relays in Guangzhou, China. That performance etched them into national history, propelling Kenya to their maiden appearance at the Tokyo World Championships in the event.
In Tokyo, Boniface Mweresa, Steve Odhiambo, Meshack Babu and Mark Otieno posted 38.56 for sixth place in the heats, narrowly missing out on the finals.
Omanyala has vowed to steer the ship himself, making his intentions clear in an exclusive interview with the Star.
“The plan is that I am now going to take charge of the 4x100m team. I am not going to let the federation (Athletics Kenya) be in charge of it,” Omanyala asserted.
He revealed that the sprinters have already set their strategy in motion, forming a WhatsApp group to initiate discussions before bringing Athletics Kenya on board for logistical support. “I will be taking care of the team. We have already started discussions, and afterwards we will involve AK and tell them to support us where possible,” he added.
Omanyala’s bold move is aimed at giving the relay team ample time to sharpen their craft in readiness to battle the world’s sprinting powerhouses in Botswana. “We don’t want to just go into camp three weeks before the World Relays. That won’t work,” he emphasised.
“We want to start our training as early as November. We will be meeting three times a week to polish our baton exchanges, define roles and maximise each runner’s strength so that the baton never slows down in any exchange zone,” Omanyala explained.
The ultimate target is to shatter the national record of 38.26 set in 2023 in Botswana. “By next year’s World Relays, we want to be ready. Our target is to dip into 37 seconds,” he declared.
“The focus now is to push hard and get into the finals of the World Relays,” he underlined. To achieve this, Omanyala plans to integrate all personal coaches of the athletes into a collective programme.
“All these athletes have their own coaches, so I want to bring them together into this programme because it’s a team effort,” he said.
“I am just the patron of the team to ensure we come up with bold ideas for our relay squad,” he added, highlighting the importance of technical expertise.
“Coaches will help us ensure the baton moves at the same speed from start to finish. Relays are all about technical precision. You can be the fastest in the world, but if you can’t pass the baton cleanly, you won’t win.”
Omanyala is eager to build on Kenya’s historic qualification for the World Championships and use it as a springboard for Gaborone.
“I am looking at next year because we got to the World Championships with the 4x100m team, something that had never happened before,” he said.
“So we are in the mix. We now need to break into the top eight globally.”
He believes the current generation of sprinters has the pedigree to deliver glory.
“With this crop of sprinters, I believe we are the right guys to bring glory to the country; we just need to start early,” Omanyala insisted.
Beyond the World Relays, the Commonwealth Games also remain firmly on his radar. “In the previous Commonwealth Games, we dropped the baton. We need to fix that and hopefully deliver a better performance,” he said.
At the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the quartet of Omanyala, Mike Mokamba, Hesborn Ochieng, and Dan Asamba recorded a DNF in the finals after a mishap during the baton exchange.
