SAINT-DENIS, France — Noah Lyles wants the world to know this: He's far from done.
A day after winning his first Olympic gold medal in a thrilling 100-meter final, the American sprinter continued his quest to achieve the rare feat of winning three golds in three sprint events in a single Games.
“I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling pretty pumped,” Lyles said of his run in Monday night's race at the Stade de France, 22 hours after his medal-worthy run. “My coach and I knew we were going in and it was going to be a race where we were really going to have to wing it.”
“He said 'top-2'. In my heart I said 'top-1'.”
The “fastest man alive” ultimately followed his instincts and won the final 200-meter heat of the night in 20.19 seconds. He advanced to Wednesday night's semifinals. Lyles put an extra gear in about 110 meters into the race, allowing him to pull away on the straightaway before calmly cruising to the finish line.
“I would say that race allowed me to get rid of, like I say, a lot of the gunk off my body — adhesions, pain, that kind of stuff,” Lyles said. “So it was much needed. I could have taken care of it a day before we started the race.”
Lyles said there was little celebration on the night he won the gold medal. He spent it talking to the media, completing a mandatory post-race drug test and adopting the role of a boyfriend.
Monday marks two years of marriage between Lyles and his girlfriend, Jamaican 400-meter runner Junelle Bromfield, Lyles said. While he admits he owes her a real vacation after the Olympics, he did perform an important act of chivalry early Monday morning.
At around 2 a.m. Paris time, Lyles said Bromfield had informed him that he had accidentally left his track shoes at his masseuse’s Airbnb near the Olympic Village. Since he was running his first races of the Olympics later on Monday morning, it was imperative that he get those shoes.
“So here I am, 2 a.m., waddling with a bag of nails, my purse and some toiletries, and I'm like, 'Oh, here I am, Olympic 100-meter champion, waddling into my girlfriend's room with all this stuff,'” Lyles said, laughing.
“I'm a good boyfriend.”
Bromfield qualified in her first round of the 400 metres, finishing third in 51.36 seconds.
In Monday night's men's 200-meter race, fellow Americans Kenny Bednarek, who ran 19.96 seconds, and Erriyon Knighton (19.99), also advanced to the semifinals after winning their heats.
In Tokyo, Lyles won bronze in the event. A year later, at the 2022 World Championships in Oregon, he set a personal best by winning gold in 19.31 seconds. The time is just 0.01 seconds off the Olympic record set by Jamaican Usain Bolt at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
If Lyles wins gold in Thursday night's 200-meter final, he will have won the second event on the list of sprint triples. If he wins gold as part of the U.S. men's 4×100 relay team on Friday, he will have completed 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 Games.
After his 100m victory on Sunday, Lyles was asked how confident he was of winning all three gold medals.
“I'm pretty confident now, I can't lie,” he said.
The ever-brazen Lyles then took it a step further.
“Kenny definitely set a fast time in [U.S.] “It was a big accomplishment for me in the 100, and that definitely woke me up,” Lyles said, referring to Bednarek, who finished seventh in Sunday's tight 100-meter final. “I was really proud of him. He's definitely not going to sit back like he did here in the 100. He's going to say, 'I'm going to try it in the 200.' Because he knows he can try it.
“But my job is to make sure that… I'll leave it there. I'll be winning.”
Then Lyles' American 100-meter teammate, Fred Kerley, chimed in: “Talk your bullshit, man.”
Lyles finished: “But if that man [Bednarek] “I'm not winning, none of them are winning. When I come out of the turn… they'll be depressed.”
