Ferdinand Omanyala, the African 100m record holder, is set to make his indoor debut at the Miramas Métropole Indoor meet in France on Friday night. The meet is a World Athletics Indoor Tour bronze label race.
Omanyala believes that competing in indoor races will help him improve his movement off the blocks, which will in turn help him cut a bit more of his start time.
"I am so excited about the indoor season because previously, I have always watched it just on TV but now I am going to compete," Omanyala said. "Over the last two months of training, I have been doing a lot of block starts because I am trying to perfect my start," he added.
Omanyala aims to perfect his start and racing indoors will help him achieve this goal. If he runs the 60m, he plans to step faster in the first part of the race and once he gets used to this, the 100m will be faster. He believes that if he can perfect his skill in the first 50m, he can cut a few seconds of his time because he has a very good acceleration in the last 50m.
"Definitely, I can run faster than 9.77secs," Omanyala said confidently. He arrived in France three days ago and has trained over the last two days, saying he is ready to battle for the stadium record of 6.68seconds.
"I am excited to be here of course and my target is to run a good race. If I have the possibility of going for the stadium record then why not?" Omanyala posed.
After the race in Marseille tonight, Omanyala will head to Paris where he is scheduled to run three more races before flying back home to prepare for the outdoor season.
