Ferdinand Omanyala has ceded first place in this year’s Diamond League Standings after Akani Simbine won the Silesia Diamond League on July 16.
Simbine beat the reigning World 100m champion, Fred Kerley, with a photo-finish in Poland to register his second successive victory this year.
The South African crossed the line with 9.97 seconds, just 0.01 seconds ahead of Kerley, to snap his unbeaten record this year. Simbine had earlier won the meet in Stockholm.
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The former Commonwealth and African champion finished second in the Rabat Diamond League in May before finishing fourth in Florence.
The cumulated results saw him rise to the top of the table with 28 points, supplanting Omanyala, who was still at the top just before the Silesia race. Kerley’s second-place finish also means that he moves to second, with Omanyala dropping to third place.
Men’s 100m 2023 Diamond League standings
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Events participated in | Points |
| 1 | Akani Simbine | South Africa | 4 | 28 |
| 2 | Fred Kerley | America | 3 | 23 |
| 3 | Ferdinand Omanyala | Kenya | 3 | 20 |
| 4 | Yohan Blake | Jamaica | 4 | 14 |
| 5 | Letsile Tebogo | America | 2 | 11 |
| 6 | Trayvon Bromell | Jamaica | 2 | 10 |
| 7 | Noah Lyles | America | 1 | 8 |
*Figures courtesy, World Athletics.
The fastest man in the continent has two second-place finishes and a third-place finish in the three events he has participated in this year. He will be back in Monaco on Friday before he retreats again to prepare for the World Athletics Championships.
In Monaco, Omanyala is set to face Simbine and Botswana’s sensation Letsile Tebogo among others, as captured by Diamond League’s website.
Wanda Diamond League rules
As Sports Brief previously reported, the lucrative games often consist of 15 meets in different countries throughout the course of the year. The one-day meets see athletes compete in various disciplines in 14 cities from May to September, with the top athletes qualifying for the final in Eugene on September 16 and 17.
In each of the first 14 meetings, the top eight athletes are awarded points based on their finishing position. Number one gets 8 points, number two gets 7 points, number three gets 6 points, and so on until the eighth athlete.
For the final in Eugene, the top six in the field events; the top eight in the 100m, 200m, 400m, and 800m; and the top ten in the 1500m and long-distance events are taken after the accumulation of the points tally from the 14 events.
The final is a winner-take-all competition for one athlete to be crowned the Diamond League champion.
