Lyles strikes 100m gold to extend US dominance
Athletics - World Athletics Championship - Men's 100m Final - National Athletics Centre, Budapest, Hungary - August 20, 2023 Noah Lyles of the U.S. celebrates with his medal after winning the Men's 100m Final REUTERS/Aleksandra Szmigiel
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American
Noah Lyles roared to victory in a sensational men's world championships 100m in
Budapest on Sunday to extend the US dominance in track and field's blue riband
event in the post-Usain Bolt era.
Lyles, who already
has two world 200m titles to his name and will go for a third in the Hungarian
capital, clocked 9.83sec - the fastest 100m time of the season so far -- for
victory at the National Athletics Centre.
"They
said it couldn't be done. They said I wasn't the one. But I thank God I
am," bellowed Lyles after dancing around in delight when his win was
confirmed on the big screen.
Botswana's Letsile Tebogo, 20, claimed silver in 9.88sec in a photo-finish from Anguilla-born Briton Zharnel Hughes.
Lyles' victory
represented a fourth consecutive American gold in the men's 100m, following in
the footsteps of Justin Gatlin in London in 2017, Christian Coleman in Doha two
years later and Fred Kerley in Eugene last year.
Bolt won the
last of his three titles in Beijing in 2015, before retiring after the bronze
he won in London two years later.
The final in
the Hungarian capital, widely regarded as the most open in 20 years, had been
further blown apart in a set of dramatic semi-finals earlier in the evening.
Neither
reigning champion Fred Kerley nor Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs managed to
make the final eight, opening the door for Lyles to stage his ambush.
In sultry
conditions, with temperature of 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit),
Lyles was drawn in lane six, outside Hughes, with Coleman on his left.
It was 2019
champion Coleman, who missed the Tokyo Olympics because of an 18-month
suspension for missing multiple drug-testing appointments, that got the better
start.
Racing low
and hard out of his blocks, the American was quickly ahead of the field.
But Lyles,
on his coattails, gradually reeled him in through an effective drive phase over
the last 60 metres.
As Coleman
faded, two-time world under-20 champion Tebogo delivered the race of his life
for silver.
Hughes
snatched bronze by three-thousandths of a second from Jamaican Oblique Seville,
with Coleman fifth in 9.92.
Abdul Hakim
Sani Brown of Japan improved on his seventh place in Eugene last year to bag
sixth, while Kenya's in-form Commonwealth champion Ferdinand Omanyala came in
seventh, just ahead of a second Jamaican, Ryiem Forde.


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