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South African sprinter Akani Simbine continues to demonstrate his fine form in the 2025 season. Weeks after winning his first-ever global medal in his professional track career, he has now run the quickest time of the season in 100m, clocking a blistering 9.90s run at the 2025 Botswana Golden Grand Prix.
At the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, Simbine comprehensively secured victory, with Ferdinand Omanyala coming just behind with a 10.00s run. Although the Kenyan star missed the topmost podium place, this timing still landed him in third joint place among the fastest 100m runners this season so far.
Australia’s Lachlan Kennedy holds third place after an impressive show at the Australian Championships, where he clocked 10.00s in the 100m heats to secure a top-three spot early in the season. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Bayanda Walaza is living up to his reputation as a future star, clocking 9.99s, the second-fastest 100m time at the AGN Championships in South Africa.
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The United States' Kenny Bednarek ranks ninth in the list and only athlete from the nation, with a time of 10.07s, achieved at the Grand Slam Track in Kingston.
With this, let’s look at the complete list of the year’s top 10 athletes in the 100m -
- Akani Simbine (South Africa) - 9.90s (-1.4)
- Bayanda Walaza (South Africa) - 9.99s (+0.7)
- Lachlan Kennedy (Australia) - 10.00s (+0.9)
- Ferdinand Omanyala (Kenya) - 10.00s (-1.4)
- Rohan Browning (Australia) - 10.01s (+1.5)
- Carlos Brown Jr. (Bahamas) - 10.04s (+1.7)
- Ackeem Blake (Jamaica) - 10.06s (+0.1)
- Gary Card (Jamaica) - 10.06s (+0.5)
- Kenny Bednarek (USA) - 10.07s (-1.3)
- Abduraqhmaan Karriem (South Africa) - 10.07s (-1.0)
Prominent sprinters such as Noah Lyles, Kishane Thompson, and Christian Coleman, among others, are yet to make their 2025 outdoor season debut in the 100m.
Akani Simbine, Noah Lyles and Letsile Tebogo among top athletes not signed up for Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track
Many of the world’s current fastest sprinters haven’t signed the Michael Johnson’s founded Grand Slam Track (GST). These are none other than Noah Lyles, Letsile Tebogo, Christian Coleman, and Akani Simbine among others. The 100m 2024 Olympic and six-time world champion listed a lack of sponsors and wrong grouping of events among the prime reasons behind not signing up with the GST.
Meanwhile, the 2025 World Indoor Championships bronze medalist Simbine revealed traveling as the reason for not joining the league in an interview with LetsRundotcom (YouTube), adding:
“It's just too much travel time to America. It's really far for us. So we'd rather stay on the European side and do the China side. Because if I'm doing China, then I have to go back to the States, and it's a lot of travel. Coach doesn't want us traveling that much, so we just decided to stick to the normal circuit.”
Notably, the inaugural edition of the league held in Kingston witnessed Kenny Bednarek win the men’s short sprints with a dominant performance, becoming both 100m and 200m champion and collecting a maximum of 24 points in his race group.
