Akani Simbine storms to 100m world lead in windy US

Akani Simbine stormed to a significant 9.90 sec world lead winning the men’s 100m at the Adidas Atlanta City Games in the US on Saturday.

The SA sprinter downed Kenyan nemesis Ferdinand Omanyala convincingly as he produced his first sub-10 sec performance of the season and the 40th legal sub-10 race of his career. 

This was also his fastest 100m time since the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but making this performance even more impressive was that Simbine had to negotiate a 0.4m-per-second head wind, making this his career best time into an oncoming wind.

Simbine had been quicker only twice before, clocking his 9.89 and 9.84 SA records from 2016 and 2021, which were both achieved with tail winds. Even his 9.90 effort in Japan three years ago was done with a 0.9mps wind assistance. 

Omanyala, holder of the 9.77 African mark, was second in 10.00. American Kendal Williams was third in 10.05, Udodi Onwuzurike of Nigeria third in 10.12 and Ronnie Baker, the second American in the five-man field, last in 10.23.

Simbine’s time put him No 1 on the world list for the 100m so far this year, ahead of Williams and Christian Miller, another American, on 9.93.

Simbine has been in the top five of the world since the 2016 Rio Olympics, finishing fourth at Tokyo 2020 and at the 2019 world championships.

The only exception was last year when he was disqualified for a false start at the world championships in Budapest.

But 30-year-old Simbine, who won a Diamond League meet in China last month, is proving he is a contender for the Paris Olympics, where the 100m final is set for August 4.

World champion Noah Lyles, Olympic champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs and Botswana star Letsile Tebogo are still early in their 100m campaigns, while Jamaica’s Oblique Seville hasn’t run shorter than 200m so far.

But right now Simbine is on track.