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Cole Harvey, ESPN Writer
SAINT-DENIS, France – Noah Lyles wants the world to know this: He’s far from done.
A day after claiming his first Olympic gold medal in a thrilling 100-meter final, the American sprinter continued his quest for the rare feat of winning three gold medals in three sprint events at a single Games.
“I’m not going to lie, I’m in high spirits,” Lyles said of running Monday night at the Stade de France, 22 hours after his medal-winning race. “My coach and I knew we were going to go into the race and we were going to have to take it seriously.
He said, “First and second place,” and in my heart I said, “First place.”
The world’s fastest man ended up listening to his instincts, winning the 200-meter final in 20.19 seconds. He advanced to the semifinals on Wednesday night. Lyles picked up speed about 110 meters into the race, allowing him to take off down the straight before easily crossing the finish line.
“I think that race took a lot of the adhesions and the pain and stuff out of the body,” Lyles said. “So it was very necessary. I could have dealt with it the day before the race.”
Lyles said there was little celebration on the night of his gold medal. He spent the night talking to the media, taking a mandatory post-race drug test and getting romantically involved with a friend.
Lillis said Monday marked his second wedding anniversary to his girlfriend, Jamaican 400m runner Jonelle Broomfield, and while he admits he owes her a real break after the Olympics, he did some serious horsemanship in the early hours of Monday morning.
Around 2 a.m. Paris time, Lillis said Bromfield told him she had accidentally left her running shoes at the massage therapist’s Airbnb apartment near the Olympic Village. Since she was due to run her first Olympic race later Monday morning, it was imperative she get them.
“And here I am at 2 a.m., waddling around with a bag of nails, my purse, some toiletries, and I’m like, ‘Here I am, Olympic champion, 100-meter dasher, waddling to my girlfriend’s room with all this stuff,’” Lyles said with a laugh.
“I’m a good frind.”
Broomfield qualified from her opening round in the 400m, finishing third in 51.36 seconds.
In the men’s 200m races held on Monday evening, Americans Kenny Bednarik (19.96 seconds) and Erion Knighton (19.99 seconds) also qualified for the semi-finals after winning the heats.
In Tokyo, Lyles took bronze in the event. A year later, at the 2022 World Championships in Oregon, he set a personal best when he won gold in 19.31 seconds. That time is just 0.01 seconds off the Olympic record set by Jamaican Usain Bolt at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
If Lyles wins the gold medal in the 200-meter final on Thursday, he will have completed the second race on the sprint triathlon list. After winning gold as part of the U.S. men’s 4×100-meter relay team on Friday, he will have completed the race.
Only four men in Olympic history have achieved the rare sprint triple. Three of them were Americans: Jesse Owens (1936), Bobby Morrow (1956) and Carl Lewis (1984). Bolt is the only person to win the sprint triple in three separate Games, doing so at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
After winning the 100m on Sunday, Lyles was asked how confident he was that he could win all three gold medals.
“I’m so confident now, I can’t lie,” he said.
Then the ever-reckless Lyles went a step further.
“Kenny ran a fast time at the (U.S.) trials, and that definitely woke me up,” Lyles said, referring to Bednarek, who finished seventh in a hotly contested 100-meter final on Sunday. “I was really proud of him. He’s definitely not going to give up on what he did here in the 100. He’s going to say, ‘I’m going to try to do that in the 200,’ because he knows he can do it.”
“But my job is to make sure I leave it at that. I’m going to win.”
Then Lyles’s teammate on the U.S. 100-meter team, Fred Kerley, interrupted him, saying, “Speak naturally, man.”
“But if that guy (Bednarik) doesn’t win, none of them will win,” Lyles said. “When I get out of the innings… they’re going to be depressed.”
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