Ferdinand Omanyala Floors Kenny Bednarek, Akani Simbine and Letsile Tebogo with Another Sub-10 in Shanghai

Africa’s fastest man Ferdinand Omanyala continued his impressive 2026 season when he recorded yet another sub-10 performance at the Diamond League opener in Shanghai on Saturday.

In a race that had some of the world’s best sprinters, Omanyala floored all his major rivals as he finished second behind surprise winner Gift Leotlela from South Africa.

The race had American Kenny Bednarek, South Africa’s Akani Simbine, Letsile Tebogo of Botswana as well as Americans Trayvon Bromell and Christian Coleman making up a star-studded cast.

However, Omanyala, running in the seventh lane, was unfazed as he got off the blocks quickly and sprinted past most of his competitors before Leotlela edged it just at the finish line.

Omanyala clocked 9.98 seconds for second place behind Leotlela’s 9.97 while Bednarek finished third in a season’s best 9.98 seconds.

Bromell was fourth in 10.01 seconds, the same time recorded by Australian Lachlan Kennedy for fifth place. Omanyala’s African rivals Simbine (10.05) and Tebogo (10.12) finished sixth and seventh respectively while Coleman could only manage 10.19 seconds for eighth place.

“I ran under 10 and I was satisfied, the result is good and we move on from there. I’m used to competing so it was a good run. Before the race, I had expectation to run under 10 and now I achieve that, I hope to keep the performance consistent in the next race in Xiamen,” said Omanyala.

“We changed the training program a little bit, we did more loading and we went to South Africa for training instead of Kenya, which really worked well for us. This is a good season start, and I will keep going and get prepared for next year's World Championship in Beijing.”

Omanyala has been in good form this season with this being his fourth sub-10 performance in 2026, having not dipped under 10 seconds in the whole of 2025.