Noah Lyles is on the right track. Seven years after the retirement of Usain Bolt, who left an immeasurable void in the luxury showcase of athletics that is the world sprint, the 26-year-old American has never been stronger. Friday, August 25, five days after winning the first gold medal of his career in the 100m event at the Budapest world championships, he unsurprisingly claimed the crown for the greater distance, in 19 sec 52.
Retaining his title of world champion in the 200m for the third time in a row, he enters the pantheon of sprinters who have achieved the double at the same edition of the Worlds. In the company of Maurice Greene (1999), Justin Gatlin (2005), Tyson Gay (2007) and Usain Bolt (2009, 2013 and 2015), Noah Lyles takes on an unprecedented depth.
However, against the Floridian, the competition is young and far from being anecdotal. Fellow American Erriyon Knighton, 19, and Batswana Letsile Tebogo, 20, also ran very fast in a spectacular final: second in 19.75s and third in 19.81s respectively. double crown of Lyles even more meritorious.
“The year 2022 showed me that it was possible. I had started working on the 100m without it affecting my speed in the 200m. It allowed me to focus this season on the 100m,” he explained at a press conference after his first title on Sunday. With Le Monde, before his Parisian victory in June in the Diamond League, Noah Lyles had shown himself confident in his double project: “I am doing better than in other years. »
Go tickle Bolt’s records
Nothing disturbed the new king of the sprint in Hungary: neither the young guard with long teeth nor a slight accident of electric carts – they transport the athletes from the warm-up stadium to the main enclosure – which collided the day before before his semi-final. This clash did not prevent him from setting the best time in the semis, in 19.76. Jamaican Andrew Hudson, who received glass in his eye during the accident, still ran, to finish fifth in his race ; he was also drafted.
After Lyles’ easy performance, the spectators at Nemzeti Atlétikai Kozpont in Budapest were expecting an even more spectacular time in the final. And the favorite did not disappoint them, finishing in 19.51, a time very close to his best performance of the season, which he had achieved in London in July (19.47). But the American sprinter did not manage to beat his personal best, achieved in the final of these same world championships last year in the United States (19 s 31).
To tickle Bolt, still double world record holder in the 100m and 200m, Noah Lyles must now run faster. If he still needs to work on the straight line – he imagines he can aim for 9.60 – he considers himself capable of appropriating the reference of the 200m, held for fourteen years by the Jamaican legend (19.19 ). “Yes, it will come. I don’t know when, he told Le Monde. I am not a diviner. »
“I will never be satisfied, but it’s a good start”
A complex and endearing personality, the American athlete is as exuberant on the track – like his impressive leaps before each start – as he can be locked up outside. Regularly in the hospital because of asthma attacks until he was 6 years old, relieved by operations on the tonsils and adenoids, he also suffered from dyslexia and attention disorders. “I’ve been fighting all my life. Now I fight on the track,” he said.
Bravely, in a world of big cats where sprinters like to gauge themselves and flaunt their infallibility, the new double world champion spoke publicly about his bouts of depression: “I feel much better than in 2021 and 2020. »
Noah Lyles seems to have tamed his old demons and gained recognition from his peers. Including that of Usain Bolt, who dubbed him on the Kingston meeting track – the land of the world record holder – after his victory in the 200m: “Our sport needs that, we need a personality. »
This acceptance of his weaknesses strengthens Noah Lyles, and frees him, as he explained in June in Paris: “I will never be satisfied, but it’s a good start. As my career progressed, I had the opportunity to do more of the things I dreamed of off the track. And I think all of that was more exciting than what I accomplished on the track. »
Even if the younger generation, led by Knighton and Tebogo, is already threatening him, Noah Lyles, appeased, seems to have all the tools to afford his first Olympic titles in Paris next year, and become an athlete and an accomplished man.