BUDAPEST – When Noah Lyles went to race the 200m World Championships final, his coach, Lance Braumann, said a few farewell words.
“The next time I see you, you’ll be a three-time world champion in the 200m,” Braumann said.
Lyles smiled.
He validated Brauman later that Friday night. Lyles pulled out of the curve, clocked 19.52 seconds, and won by 23 one-hundredths over 19-year-old American Erion Knighton. And Litsel Tebogo of Botswana, 20, won the silver in the 100-meter race and the bronze in the 200-meter.
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Lyles, 26, entered a world where he believed he could break Usain Bolt’s world record of 19.19 seconds. A year ago, he won the 200-meter race with a time of 19.31 seconds, breaking the American record of Michael Johnson, and becoming the third fastest man in history.
“Of course I wanted to be faster. At least I wanted to break the American record again,” Lyles said. “I still think I have the potential. It’s just after my sixth race and I’m still running 19.5, I can’t help feeling sad about that.
Lyles set the record straight. It was his first time running the 100m and 200m at a world championships, making it six races in seven days.
Braumann noted the sweltering heat all week.
Lyles also returned to the Olympics – he was the favorite and ran 19.74 seconds for the bronze medal.
“After what happened in Tokyo, I said I don’t believe in it He deserves To win anymore, said NBC Sports’ Louis Johnson. “You take the win. Today I had to take that win again. Just because I’ve won it two years in a row, doesn’t mean it’s mine.”
Lyles also brought up his first world championship in 2019, when he prevailed in 19.83 seconds.
“I haven’t been able to watch this race for months because I was so disappointed in myself [for the time],” he said. “But years later, when I look back at that race, and I say, Wow, I actually did it. I did that when I was young, and I was hitting big courts. It was a tough world championship at that time.”
Lyles became the first man to win a world sprint double at the world championships since Bolt in 2015. He is expected to take part in the men’s 4x100m relay on Saturday in the United States, in a bid to match Bolt’s triple gold achievement at the 2015 (and 2013 and 2009) worlds.
Eventually, he and Broman will return to Claremont, Florida. They will be thinking about the season, particularly how well his training sessions have prepared him for the pace double, which he hopes to repeat in Paris.
“We hit the right target at the right time,” said Browman, who has previously coached 100m and 200m superstars Veronica Campbell-Brown, Tyson Gay and Torey Bowie. “We’ll take a look at the program, and see if there’s anything you’d like to tweak, but as of now, I mean, this plan is pretty well put together.”
Also Friday, Jamaican Sherika Jackson repeated the title of women’s 200-meter race champion, this time with a time of 21.41 seconds, which is the second fastest time in history. Jackson, 29, was a 400m runner until 2021.
Only Florence Griffith Joyner’s world record of 21.34 from 1988 is faster (with a tailwind 1.2 m/s larger than Jackson’s). Jackson won last year’s title with a time of 21.45 seconds, which was then No. 2 in history.
Jackson later said that 1) she was feeling “kind of bad weather” in Friday’s final and 2) wrote twice on her bib beforehand: 21.40 and a faster time which she refused to reveal at a press conference. However, the citation provided by World Athletics credits Jackson with saying he is a “21.2-something”.
“Once I run a good race, I’m definitely going to get there,” Jackson said.
The Americans Gabby Thomas and Chakari Richardson won the silver (21.81) and the bronze (21.92).
Thomas, an Olympic bronze medalist, watched last year’s world 200m final at Hayward Field. She missed the team at the event due to a Grade II torn hamstring 12 days before the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
Richardson, who won gold in the 100m this week, became the first American woman to win two medals in the 100m and 200m at the same worlds since Carmelita Jeter in 2011. Richardson clocked the fastest times of her life in both finals.
Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas won her fourth consecutive world title in the triple jump, taking it out on her final jump to advance from eighth place.
Rojas, undefeated since winning her Olympic title in Tokyo, avoided elimination after four of six tiebreaker jumps.
Rojas’ jump of 15.08m denied Ukraine’s Marina-Bek-Romanchuk from winning her country’s first outdoor world title at any event since 2013.
Haruka Kitaguchi wins the javelin on her final throw to become the first Japanese woman to win a world title in any event since Hiromi Suzuki in the 1997 marathon.
The worlds continue on Saturday, live on CNBC, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app and Peacock, featuring the 5,000m, as Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon strives to become the first woman to sweep the 1,500m and 5,000m at the same time.
