An ironclad rule of sports journalism is that there’s no cheering in the press box. Sports journalists are to always exhibit neutrality. We’re human, though, and at times it’s impossible not to become a fan of individual athletes. And I’ll admit that when the men in the 200-meter final settle into their starting blocks Thursday, I’ll be in my living room, ready to cheer American Noah Lyles to victory.
Already the 100-meter gold medalist after a thrilling, photo-finish race Sunday night, Lyles will be running to secure his second gold medal in Paris in the event that put him on the path to track and field greatness.
When the men in the 200-meter final settle into their starting blocks Thursday, I’ll be ready to cheer American Noah Lyles to victory.
On Aug. 4, 2021, in Tokyo, he won a bronze medal in the 200 meters, behind Canada’s Andre DeGrasse and American Kenny Bednarek. Lyles’ loss was one of the surprises of the meet, perhaps behind only Italy’s Marcell Jacobs’ shocking the hell out of the world with his 100-meter win. After that race, in the thick humidity of the mix zone under Tokyo Olympic Stadium, I became a fan.
Lyles was spent. He was talking to print and online reporters after he’d already endured more than a dozen television and radio interviews. His initial aloofness gave way to a torrent of emotion, his disappointment at not winning. He cried. He apologized for crying. He expressed his sorrow that his younger brother, Josephus, the one he’d followed into track as a kid so they could be together, wasn’t in Tokyo competing. “This should be him,” he said.
He shared more about his nearly lifelong journey with anxiety and depression and how the year leading into those Olympics had been the hardest of his life physically and mentally.
A U.S.A. Track & Field media official offered to cut things short. He didn’t take the out.
“Having a place where you can actually be OK with letting go of your fears and saying, ‘I am scared,’ because I’ve definitely said that quite a few times this year,” Lyles said. “It’s OK, you know?
“I want other people to know that there’s a better way.”
After Lyles won the 100-meter race in Paris on Sunday, he posted a message on social media: “I have Asthma, allergies, dyslexia, ADD, anxiety, and Depression. But I will tell you that what you have does not define what you can become. Why Not You!”
“Having a place where you can actually be OK with letting go of your fears and saying, ‘I am scared,’ because I’ve definitely said that quite a few times this year. It’s OK, you know?
noah lyles at the 2021 tokyo olympics
Talking to us reporters under the stadium in Tokyo three years ago, Lyles was raw and vulnerable, in a way we’ve rarely seen from those in the public eye, in a way that we, for far too long, have told athletes, particularly male athletes, isn’t allowed. Thankfully, led in part by Lyles and gymnastics icon Simone Biles, that stigma seems to be melting away.
If his tears over not winning the 200 in Tokyo were Lyles’ low point, everything since has propelled him higher and higher.
He has made it his mission to make track and field more popular in the States, in part by making the stadium walk-in photo opportunity, now common in other professional sports, a thing in his sport, too. He’s used it as a time to show off some personality and his fashion sense before showing out when the competition begins. With his big talk and his painted nails, he relishes the pre-meet meetings with media, sometimes poking at his competitors and even athletes outside his sport. He got the attention of NBA stars when he said last year at the world championships that it bothers him to hear the NBA’s title-winning team called world champions when 29 of the 30 teams are in the U.S. (the 30th is in Canada).
While he is raising his own profile and chasing Jamaica’s Usain Bolt in the record book, other American track standouts could reap the benefits of the increased exposure.
More than the walk-in photo-ops and the entertaining news conferences, however, Lyles knew that the real way to make himself a household name was to win what counts as the marquee event at every Olympics and perhaps across all sports: the men’s 100-meter gold and the accompanying title of “world’s fastest man.”
Lyles had always included 100-meter races on his schedule (he has called the race his mistress, while the 200 meters is his wife), and he ran an impressive 9.86 at a Diamond League race in China in 2018. But he failed to secure a spot in the 100 meters when he finished seventh of eight runners in the final at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021. He announced last year that he would become world champion in both the 200 and the 100 meters in Budapest, Hungary.
Given that his biggest liability in the 100 meters was — and remains — his block starts, it was a lofty goal. The 27-year-old, one of the rare track and field athletes to jump from high school to the pros, met that first goal: He won three golds in Budapest, surprising the field with his 10-meter victory, getting his third consecutive 200-meter world championship and joining with Christian Coleman, Fred Kerley and Brandon Carnes to win the 4×100-meter relay.
The success only fueled him to match the feat at the Olympics. He got that 100-meter gold by the smallest of margins and still has his signature event on deck. The Americans are also the favorite in the relay, but after the disaster of Tokyo, where they didn’t even qualify for the medal race, the latest in a comedy of errors that hasn’t seen the U.S. win a medal in the men’s 4×100 since 2004 or a gold since 2000, it might not be a given.
But from what we’ve seen of Lyles since that night in Tokyo, when he was despondent and bared his soul to a cadre of socially distanced strangers, it will be hard to bet against them. And hard not to cheer for him.