Paris Olympics: Noah Lyles has a plan to upstage even the great Usain Bolt

PARIS — Before he could legally order a drink at a bar, Noah Lyles had the word ICON tattooed beneath his left rib cage in bold block letters.

It’s a lasting reminder of how the American sprinting sensation hopes to be viewed by the time he hangs up his spikes.

Lyles is already one of the most accomplished sprinters of his era, a big-talking showman who typically backs up his brazen boasts. He pulled off the sprint treble at World Championships last August in Budapest, streaking to victory in the 100 and 200 meters and anchoring the gold medal-winning U.S. 4x100-meter relay.

The chasm between “track star” and “icon” is what Lyles hopes he can bridge by the end of the Paris Olympics. Lyles knows he won’t capture the imagination of the masses just by outracing the world’s fastest sprinters. He has made it clear he won’t be satisfied unless he achieves feats even the legendary Usain Bolt could not.

Grandiose goal No. 1 for Lyles in Paris: Coming home with four gold medals, one more than Bolt or any other sprinter has ever won at a single Olympics. That would mean Lyles duplicating his sprint treble from Budapest and persuading USA Track & Field to select him over an array of 400-meter specialists to run a leg in the 4x400-meter relay.

Grandiose goal No. 2 for Lyles in Paris: Taking down one of Bolt’s world records that have stood unchallenged for more than a decade. The very fact that so many consider 9.58 and 19.19 to be unattainable is a motivator for Lyles. As he put it recently, “It’s the hard things I want to go after.”

Lyles got off to a rocky start in Paris on Saturday, coming out of the blocks slowly, running a sluggish 10.04 seconds and settling for second place in his first-round heat in the men's 100. On Sunday will come the semifinals and finals, where Lyles will have to run much faster to win, let alone take aim at Bolt.

“When you get to the top, you start to think about what do I have to do to be considered the greatest when I leave my sport?” Lyles said. “Grabbing a world record is one of two things I have left to do, the other being grabbing an Olympic gold. So it’s on the list. As I aim for being the greatest, it’s something that I want to get.”

Lyles portraying himself as the second coming of Bolt rubs some in track and field circles the wrong way. They’re quick to point out that he’s only the fourth-fastest man in the 100 this year and that his personal best of 9.83 seconds lags behind not just Bolt but American record holder Tyson Gay and 15 others.

Among those who view it differently is longtime NBC track and field analyst Ato Boldon, a four-time Olympic medalist in the 100 and 200 meters. Unshakeable confidence, Boldon told Yahoo Sports, is as key to Lyles’ success as his blazing top-end speed and ability to sustain it for superhuman lengths of time.

“There’s an audacity that sprinters have to have,” Boldon said. “You have to look into the future, see something that’s never been done and go, ‘Yeah, but I’m going to do it.’ That’s how Bolt got there. That’s how Carl Lewis got there. That’s how Maurice Greene got there. I don’t think that it’s just marketing and bravado. I think that Noah truly believes he can do it.”

Lyles invites the spotlight … and the criticism

To ascend from track-famous to globally famous, a fistful of gold medals alone isn’t enough. It also takes personality, pizzazz and a comfort level in front of cameras.

Bolt became the face of track and field for a nearly decade because of his rare combination of world-class speed and playful charisma. He turned every race into a must-see event, preening and posing before settling into the blocks, flashing his megawatt smile as he streaked across the finish line and then unleashing his trademark “Lightning Bolt” victory celebration as adoring crowds roared.

Just like Bolt, Lyles is also a natural entertainer. He once performed a rap verse alongside a Swiss pop band in front of a crowd of 25,000. He has strutted down the runways at the Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks. He has run some of the biggest races of his life with his hair dyed silver or his fingernails decorated with red and black flames in honor of some of his favorite anime characters.

Cameras have recently trailed Lyles everywhere he has gone for a docuseries on Peacock and a recently released Netflix reality series about the world’s top sprinters. He has even turned the walk into a track stadium into a red-carpet photo-op, arriving at meets in anything from Gucci suits, to a green sweater with an array of window-like holes cut in it.

“Noah Lyles is unique,” Michael Johnson, the four-time Olympic gold medalist and former world record holder in the 200 meters, wrote on X earlier this summer. “He states his goals. Puts on a show to draw attention to himself. That sets him up for tremendous criticism if he loses. He isn’t afraid to lose or of the consequences of losing. You run fastest when you’re not afraid of the consequences of losing.”

It isn’t just Lyles’ attire that draws attention. His candor also makes him a magnet for criticism.

Lyles was known mainly as a 200-meter specialist until early in the 2019 season when he ran a personal-best 9.86 seconds in the 100 and edged future world champion Christian Coleman by six hundredths of a second. Coleman, normally stoic and all-business, took offense when Lyles posted to Instagram afterward, “Today starts my legacy for becoming a 100 & 200 runner. And they going to say no one man should have all that power.”

“The name of the game is World medals,” Coleman responded the following day. “But PRin in May is cool for social media doe.”

Coleman later added, “Nothing wrong with a PR. But if your goal is to run fast in May to taunt and flex online then your priorities aren’t straight imo. The season is just getting started.”

Three months later, Lyles took aim at an even bigger name.

“Bolt who?” he audaciously posted to Instagram after surpassing the Jamaican legend’s Paris Diamond League meet record in the 200 meters. Lyles streaked across the finish line in 19.65 seconds, blazing fast yet still more than a half second shy of Bolt’s world record.

The jab goaded Bolt into retaliating in October 2019 after Lyles won the 200-meter final at World Championships. Clearly happy that Lyles’ winning time of 19.83 seconds was even farther off his record pace, Bolt wrote on Instagram, “USAIN BOLT WHO???”

Chasing down Usain Bolt

It must have given Lyles’ critics some degree of satisfaction when he proved unready to seize his moment during the last Olympic cycle. Maybe it was the lack of crowds to draw energy from during COVID times. Maybe it was an ill-timed knee injury that interrupted his training. Maybe it was something else.

Whatever the reason, Lyles failed to qualify for Tokyo in the 100. Then he settled for a bronze in his signature 200 when Canada’s Andre De Grasse and fellow American Kenny Bednarek overtook him late in the Olympic final.

Shaken but not broken, Lyles converted those setbacks into fuel. He refocused on improving the weakest part of his sprint game: His start.

Lyles holds his speed as well as anyone since Bolt, but he doesn’t accelerate out of the blocks as quickly as other world-class sprinters. He has to find a way to remain in contact at 30 meters without sacrificing his ability to reach maximum speed and sustain it. If he stays in striking distance early in the 100, Lyles feels there’s no one he can’t reel in. And if he manages to run 9.6s and 9.7s in the 100, Lyles believes that will unlock his full potential in the 200.

Among those who have helped Lyles tinker with his start is Ralph Mann, a sports research pioneer who studies the biomechanics of elite sprinters and hurdlers and then uses that data to produce computer-based teaching tools. Lyles devoted endless hours to studying slow-motion videos of himself springing out of the blocks, comparing his launch angles to Mann’s advanced computer model and trying to improve his technique.

At the U.S. Olympic Trials earlier this summer, Lyles showcased some of the progress he has made. Sporting glimmering white pearls around his neck and woven into his hair, Lyles matched his personal-best time of 9.83 seconds to win the 100. Then he chased down Bednarek in the 200 final, roaring across the finish line in 19.53 seconds to shatter the Trials record.

“I’m right where I need to be,” Lyles said afterward. “We didn’t come here with the plan to peak for the season. We’re kind of drifting into the peak. I’d say we have quite a bit of practice to keep doing. I’m not done with the weight room. I’m ready to get back into the gym and work on some smaller weaknesses within my body, just strengthen them up before the Olympics.”

What chance does Lyles have of threatening either of Bolt’s world records in Paris? “I don’t think Noah is a future 100-meter world record holder,” Boldon said, “but I think he has a really good chance at the 200.”

The 100 projects as the tougher race for Lyles to win, especially after 23-year-old Jamaican Kishane Thompson threw down a world-leading time of 9.77 seconds to win his country’s national title earlier this summer. Lyles’ toughest competition in the 200 might come from fellow Americans Bednarek and Erriyon Knighton.

It’s a near certainty that Lyles will once again anchor the U.S. 4x100-meter relay, but it’s unclear if he’ll get a chance at a fourth medal.

When USATF chose Lyles to run in the 4x400-meter relay final at the World Indoor Championships earlier this year, the decision drew accusations of favoritism from other American sprinters. Lyles had not run an open 400 at a meet since he was 18 years old and has a pedestrian personal best of 47.04 seconds.

Voicing his frustration on X, former Olympic silver medalist Fred Kerley wrote, “F— that Olympic storyline s—” and called USATF “puppets” and “yes men.” Kerley, the collegiate record holder in the 400, has not been part of the U.S. 4x400-meter relay pool since choosing to focus primarily on the 100 and 200 three years ago.

At Trials, Lyles alluded to the blowback from Kerley and others when asked if he has begun to negotiate with USATF about participating in the 4x400. He admitted that persuading USATF “will be hard,” but he said he’ll be ready if called upon.

“I thrive off big moments,” he added. “The bigger the moment, the faster I run.”