SAINT-DENIS, France – Noah Lyles wants the world to know: He’s far from finished.
A day after winning his first Olympic gold medal in a thrilling 100-meter final, the American speedster continued his attempt to achieve the rare feat of winning three gold medals in three sprint events at just a single Games.
“I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling pretty pumped,” Lyles said of his run Monday night at the Stade de France, 22 hours after his medal-winning race. “My coach and I knew we were coming in and that it was going to be a race where we really had to play by feel.”
“He said 'Top 2'. In my heart I said 'Top 1'.”
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The “fastest man in the world” finally listened to his gut and won the final heat of the evening, the 200m, in 20.19 seconds, putting him in the semi-finals on Wednesday night. Lyles picked up a gear after about 110 meters, allowing him to pull away on the straight before crossing the finish line.
“I would say that race, like I said, there was a lot of gunk that was removed from the body – adhesions, tenderness, things like that,” Lyles said. “So that was very necessary. I could have gotten it done the day before the race started.”
Lyles said there was little celebration the night he won the gold medal. He spent the night talking to the media, undergoing a mandatory post-race drug test and slipping into boyfriend mode.
Monday is the second anniversary for Lyles and his girlfriend, Jamaican 400-meter runner Junelle Bromfield, Lyles said, and although he admits he owes her a proper vacation after the Olympics, he performed an important act of chivalry in the early hours of Monday morning.
At around 2 a.m. Paris time, Lyles said, Bromfield told him that she had accidentally left her running spikes at her masseur's Airbnb near the Olympic Village. Since she was racing in her first races of the Olympics later that Monday morning, it was imperative that she get those spikes.
“So there I am at 2 a.m., waddling with a spike bag, my bag and some toiletries, and I think, 'Hmm. Here I am, Olympic 100-meter champion, waddling into my girlfriend's room with all this stuff,'” Lyles says, laughing.
“I am a good friend.”
Bromfield qualified in the first round 400-meter race and finished third with a time of 51.36 seconds.
In the men's 200-meter race on Monday evening, their American compatriots Kenny Bednarek with a time of 19.96 seconds and Erriyon Knighton (19.99) also reached the semifinals after victories in their heats.
In Tokyo, Lyles won bronze in this event. A year later, at the 2022 World Championships in Oregon, he set a personal best when he won gold in 19.31 seconds. The time is just 0.01 seconds under the Olympic record set by Jamaican Usain Bolt at the 2008 Beijing Games.
If Lyles takes gold in the 200-meter final on Thursday night, he will have taken care of the second event on the sprint triple list. A gold medal as part of the U.S. men's 4×100-meter relay on Friday and he will have done it.
Only four men in Olympic history have achieved the rare sprint triple. Three of them are Americans: Jesse Owens (1936), Bobby Morrow (1956) and Carl Lewis (1984). Bolt is the only person to have won sprint triples at three different Games, at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
After his 100-meter victory on Sunday, Lyles was asked how confident he was of winning three gold medals.
“Now I'm pretty confident, I can't lie,” he said.
The ever cheeky Lyles then went one step further.
“Kenny definitely set a fast time at [U.S.] “I went to the heats and that definitely woke me up,” Lyles said, referring to Bednarek, who finished seventh in Sunday's hotly contested 100-meter final. “I was very proud of him. He's definitely not going to take his performance here in the 100 meters and say, 'I'm going to try the 200 meters.' Because he knows he can do it.
“But my job is to make sure that… I'm just going to leave it at that. I'm going to win.”
Lyles' American 100-meter teammate Fred Kerley then interjected: “Talk your shit, man.”
Lyles finished: “But if this man [Bednarek] doesn't win, none of them win. If I come off the curve… they're going to be depressed.”
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