Emmanuel Wanyonyi ran the world’s fastest 800m in 12 years, while Ferdinand Omanyala ran the world’s fastest 100m of 2024 at the Kenyan Olympic Track and Field Trials.
Wanyonyi, 19, clocked 1 minute, 41.70 seconds in Nairobi on Saturday to become the third-fastest performer in history after world record holder David Rudisha of Kenya and former world record holder Wilson Kipketer of Denmark.
Wanyonyi’s time was the world’s fastest since Rudisha lowered his world record in the 2012 Olympic final.
Wanyonyi, the 2023 World silver medalist behind Canadian Marco Arop, will look in Paris to become the fourth consecutive Kenyan man to win the Olympic 800m after Wilfred Bungei (Beijing 2008), Rudisha (London 2012, Rio 2016) and Emmanuel Korir (Tokyo 2020).
“Seeing Wanyonyi run today, I think we will have another gold medal,” Rudisha said Saturday, according to World Athletics.
Neither Korir nor Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Ferguson Rotich made the Kenyan Olympic Trials final and were not named to the team for Paris.
Omanyala won the Kenyan Olympic Trials 100m in 9.79 seconds to supplant Jamaican Oblique Seville as the world’s fastest man in 2024.
It is the world’s fastest wind-legal time since American Fred Kerley also ran 9.79 in his opening round of the July 2022 World Championships.
Omanyala owns the African record of 9.77 seconds set in September 2021. He is the ninth-fastest man in history behind eight men from Jamaica and the U.S.
At last August’s worlds, Omanyala reached the final of a global championship for the first time and placed seventh.
At the Tokyo Games, Omanyala was one spot away from becoming the first Kenyan to make an Olympic 100m final.
Also at Kenyan trials, two-time Olympic 1500m gold medalist Faith Kipyegon swept the 1500m and the 5000m.
Last year, Kipyegon broke the 1500m, mile and 5000m world records, plus became the first woman to sweep the 1500m and 5000m at a world championships. Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegay later broke Kipyegon’s 5000m world record.
In Paris, Kipyegon can become the first woman to win the 1500m and 5000m at one Olympics.
