Noah Lyles bags 100M gold as Omanyala finishes 7th

Budapest 

Sunday, 20 August, 2023

McCreadie Andias 

American sprinter Noah Lyles was the best man in the 100M finals winning gold after clocking 9.83 seconds in the tight sprint at Budapest on Sunday evening. 

Letsile Tebogo made history by becoming the first African to medal in the event's history. The Botswana teenage won silver with a flashing 9.88 seconds. 

Great Britain's Zharnel Hughes finished third with another sub-10 performance of 9.88 seconds, but Tebogo was adjudged to have been ahead using the photo finish rule.

Jamaicá Oblique Seville missed out on the podium places on similar rules. World Athletics reports that 0.004 separated the second and fourth place.

It was not quite the best day for Kenya as Ferdinand Omanyala finished a disappointing seventh in his first-ever final. The African champion had earlier just scraped through to the finals after qualifying as one of the fastest non-automatic finishers.

It was an event that had already claimed casualties, with defending champion Fred Kerley and Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs getting eliminated in the semis.

Lyles is now on course to becoming a double world champion in both the 100m and 200m. He is the defending champion in the latter and will be the favourite to win a third successive title later this week.

Omanyala will now focus his attention on the Diamond League finals to be staged in Eugene next month. He leads the 2023 standings alongside South Africa's Akani Simbine.