NOS Sports•today, 1:13 PM
Athlete Eugene Omalla via rugby – hopefully – to the Olympic Games
How fast can it go? At the beginning of April, Eugene Omalla and his twin brother Jamie ran for the athletics team of Kansas State University in the United States. Now Eugene has a chance to win an Olympic ticket on behalf of the Netherlands this weekend. The athletics teams are preparing for Curaçao these days.
“This is the best experience of my life. It’s a lot of fun, it’s great, it really gives me a boost,” says Eugene Omalla with an American accent.
His brother is still in the United States. He is not yet fast enough to compete with the other athletes on the team.
From rugby to athletics
It was not obvious that Omalla would focus on athletics, because he played rugby fanatically until he was 17. And the choice for the Netherlands was also not a simple matter. He has a Ugandan father, a Dutch mother and has lived abroad since he was seven.
But Omalla sees opportunities. He wants to grow, get better, be the best. This sometimes requires radical choices.
The first decisive moment occurred when he was seventeen. He wanted to study in America, but was unsure whether he would be admitted there solely through his sport of rugby. He discussed it with his parents.
“My father said: you are very fast. Shall we try athletics for a year and train in the 100 and 200 meters?”
The first year he ran the 100 meters quite quickly: “In 10.7 seconds.” The world record has been held by Usain Bolt (9.58) since 2009, where he was only a second above as a novice sprinter. Kansas City wanted him badly.
This indoor season he ran spectacularly fast in the 400 meters with 45.18 seconds; a continental record for Africa on indoor track. Omalla is therefore faster than Dutch record holder Liemarvin Bonevacia (45.48).
Once again Omalla smelled an opportunity. Because the Netherlands is good at athletics. Femke Bol became individual world champion at the beginning of March, Lieke Klaver took silver. He and his twin brother approached the Athletics Union to discuss joining the national team. They were open to that, and the twins were allowed to train since the second week of April.
On Sunday evening, 23-year-old Eugene Omalla ran his first race in the orange uniform. He won the 300 meters in Willemstad, an unusual distance that coaches use as a training incentive, in a time of 32.68 seconds.
Jam-packed agenda
After the World Championship Relays, Omalla will return to Kansas City where he studies. There he will participate in the American student championships, the NCAA, in the second weekend of June. He is obliged to participate on behalf of his university.
Sprint twins Omalla will join the Dutch athletics team
Because the NCAA championships coincide with the European Athletics Championships in Rome, Omalla will not participate in Rome. He will only play for the first time on Dutch soil at the Dutch championships in Hengelo at the end of June.
He is already preparing for that. “My goal is to improve the Dutch record for the 400 meters anyway,” he says with bravado. “Times are important to me, but when it comes to goals I mainly think about winning medals in the future.”
Also individually
Does he think he can individually reach the Olympic Games in the 400 meters this year? What does he have to run a time of 45.00 seconds before July 1?
“Yes, I assume so.”
