Lyles on to 200m semis in quest for sprint triple

SAINT-DENIS, France — Noah Lyles wants the world to know this: He is far from done.

One day after earning his first Olympic gold medal in a thrilling 100-meter final, the American speedster continued his quest to pull off the rare accomplishment of winning three golds in three sprint events at a single Games.

“I ain’t going to lie, I feel pretty jacked up,” Lyles said about running Monday night at Stade de France, 22 hours after his medal-worthy race. “Me and my coach knew that we were going to come in and it was going to be a race where we’re really going to just have to play it by ear.

“He said ‘top-2.’ In my heart I said ‘top-1.'”

The “fastest man in the world” ended up listening to his gut, winning the 200’s final heat of the night in 20.19 seconds. He advances to Wednesday night’s semifinals. Lyles hit an extra gear about 110 meters into the race, allowing him to pull away down the straightaway before easing into the finish.

“That race I’d say got out, as I say, a lot of the gunk out of the body — adhesions, tenderness, that sort of stuff,” Lyles said. “So it was very needed. I could have dealt with a day before we started racing.”

Lyles, said there were few celebrations during his gold-medal night. He spent it speaking with media, fulfilling a mandatory postrace drug test, and slipping into boyfriend mode.

Monday marks the two-year anniversary for Lyles and his girlfriend, Jamaican 400-meter runner Junelle Bromfield, Lyles said. While he admits owing her a real vacation after the Olympics, he conducted an important act of chivalry in the wee hours Monday morning.

Around 2 a.m. Paris time, Lyles said Bromfield let him know she had accidentally left her running spikes at their massage therapist’s Airbnb near the Olympic Village. Since she was running her first races of the Olympics later Monday morning, it was imperative she get those spikes.

“So here I am at 2 a.m., waddling with a spike bag, my bag and some toiletries, and I’m like, ‘Huh. Here I am, Olympics champion, 100 meters, waddling to my girlfriend’s room with all this stuff,'” Lyles said, laughing.

“I’m a good boyfriend.”

Bromfield qualified out of her opening-round 400-meter heat, finishing third in 51.36 seconds.

In Monday night’s men’s 200-meter races, fellow Americans Kenny Bednarek, running in 19.96 seconds, and Erriyon Knighton (19.99), also advanced into the semifinals after winning their heats.

In Tokyo, Lyles earned bronze in the event. A year later, at the 2022 world championships in Oregon, he set a personal best when he earned gold in 19.31 seconds. The time sits just 0.01 seconds shy of the Olympic record Jamaican Usain Bolt set at the 2008 Games in Beijing.

If Lyles wins gold in Thursday night’s 200 finals, 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 relay team Friday, and he will have completed it.

Only four men in the history of the Olympics have pulled off the rare sprint triple. Three of them are American: Jesse Owens (1936), Bobby Morrow (1956) and Carl Lewis (1984). Bolt is the only person to have won sprint-triples in three separate Games, doing it at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics.

After his 100-meter victory Sunday, Lyles was asked how confident he was that he could notch the three gold medals.

“Pretty confident now, I can’t lie,” he said.

The always-brash Lyles then took it a step further.

“Kenny definitely put up a fast time at [U.S.] trials, and that definitely woke me up,” Lyles said, referencing 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 how he did here in the 100 lying down. He’s going to say: ‘I’m going after it in the 200.’ Because he knows he can go after it.

“But my job is to make sure that … I’ll just leave it there. I’ll be winning.”

Lyles’ American 100-meter teammate, Fred Kerley, then interjected: “Talk your s—, man.”

Finished Lyles: “But if that man [Bednarek] ain’t winning, none of them is winning. When I come off the turn … they will be depressed.”