With brother by his side, Lyles looks to defend 200m crown

Noah Lyles needed a new start. 

In May, the reigning world 200m champion was working on a different way to explode out of the blocks. He consulted with Ralph Mann, a renowned expert in biomechanics and the 1972 Olympic silver medallist in the 400m hurdles.

“He came by, looked at it, and said, ‘That’s trash,’” Noah said. “He’s very blunt, and I’m a blunt person so I can take it. Still, it was like, ‘Okayyyy. That hit differently.’”

Mann helped Noah tweak his technique and the sprinter said he has “made drastic improvement” in the critical first 30 metres of his races.

As the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 begin, Noah is also feeling renewed. 

He was disappointed last summer when he did not win the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, taking home the bronze instead. Noah felt unfulfilled while competing far from home in an empty stadium due to the pandemic. 

Compared to Tokyo, Eugene is “an exact 180,” Noah said during a press conference for the US team on the eve of the championships. “One, being on home soil, and two, having my brother and my whole family here. Everything I didn’t have in Tokyo, I now have here at this World Championships.”

Noah is thrilled that his brother Josephus made his first senior national team as a member of the US 4x100m relay pool. Both brothers are candidates for the relay, which could use different personnel in each of the two rounds. “I’ve been saying this for years, when I’m on the relay we ain’t losing point blank,” Noah said, “and we might break the world record.”

Noah, who will turn 25 on 18 July, and Josephus, who will turn 24 on 22 July, vowed to become professional athletes and make the US Olympic team while watching the 2012 Olympics on television.

For Josephus, this is a major step toward that goal. He placed fifth at the US Championships in the 200m in a race won by Noah. Josephus clocked 19.93, a PB and a time fast enough to represent any other country. “The US is the hardest team to make for the sprint events,” said Josephus, who has won world medals at U20 and U18 championships. “I knew that coming in.”

For Noah, having Josephus nearby gives him peace of mind.

At a recent US relay camp, Noah said: “I was like, ‘Dang, bro, I’m happy you’re here.’ It’s always better to have your brother there, your best friend. It’s a blessing. This is exactly what we’ve been waiting to see since we turned pro. It’s one thing to say and know that it’s going to happen, and it’s another thing to see it actually happen.”

Noah said he watched Josephus progress in training and thought, “I don’t know who the heck that guy is. That man is running.”

He said Josephus, who used to run the 400m in addition to the shorter sprints, has a very high pain tolerance and would keep training when he ran the risk of injury. “I truthfully believe that the reason that he’s doing better,” Noah said, “is he actually learned how to speak up when he doesn’t feel good.” 

The honour of telling Josephus that he made the US team actually fell to the elder Lyles. He was going through world team processing following nationals when an official told him Josephus should be there doing the same.

“Oh, oh, oh, I was fumbling with my phone,” Noah said. He called his little brother and told him to stop getting food and come back immediately. He was on the team. Josephus answered, “Are you sure? Stop playing.” “I’m not playing,” Noah assured him. “This is definitely a special moment we’re always going to remember.”

Their mother, Keisha, was just as surprised when Josephus told her that night.

“She was bawling, crying, ecstatic,” he said. “She was like, ‘Oh my gosh, both my boys are going.’ Literally the next five days, she would call me every other hour and be like ‘Josephus, you’re on the team!’”

Noah added that after several deaths in the family, the news came “in the hardest of times. We always know at the end of the storm, there is something greater on the other side.”

While Noah is enjoying having a blood relative on the team, he also dispelled any notion of bad blood between him and US teammate Erriyon Knighton. The 18-year-old has the fastest time in the world this year of 19.49, which is also the fourth-fastest ever. 

Knighton led the 200m at the US Championships until Noah roared past him, pointing a finger as he broke the tape. Noah said in an interview that he was pointing at all of his doubters, not at Knighton, but the teenager initially appeared angry at the gesture.

“We did talk about it,” Noah said, “Guess where we talked about it? When we were both trying to pee for drug testing. It was a simple conversation. I just reiterated what I had said in that interview. He was like, ‘Bro, you don’t even have to worry about it. I totally get it,’ and to be honest, that was it.’”

Noah said the sport needs more rivalries, and theirs makes both of them better. “It’s fun,” he said. “I know he’s coming back with a vengeance and I’m not going to give him anything less than I have of 100.”

Noah has only been beaten twice in the 200m — to Michael Norman in 2019 in the Rome Diamond League meeting and to Andre De Grasse and Kenny Bednarek in Tokyo last summer. “I’m upset that it’s even been that many times,” Lyles said. “I don’t want it to ever happen again.”

To that end, he decided not to attempt a 100m and 200m double at the World Championships. “I’d rather grab a gold than two silvers,” Noah said.

As 2022 began, he honed his skills by running five 60m races, culminating with a 6.55 at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham. 

“At first I was like, ‘I don’t want to run something I’m not good at.’ It’s not fun,’” Lyles said. “But it was kind of needed. I realised that the main thing that’s going to set me apart from really going after that American record and the world record in the 200m is my first 30, and what better way to work at that than running more 60s?”

While Noah admits that his start may always be a work in progress, maintaining top-end speed is “one of my gifts.”

He aspires to be close to 10 seconds flat in his first 100m of a 200m, “because I’m going to work miracles in my second 100.”

Noah said even Mann was impressed. Using computer-based teaching technology, Mann made his model even faster.

“And I still beat it,” Noah said. “He never wants me to run faster than the model. But his model got a few 'L's on it from me.”

Now he hopes to pin some 'L's on real-life rivals in Eugene. As a musician in addition to a world-class sprinter, Lyles said he feels similarities to Kanye West.

“One of the biggest ones is I’m always hungry for more,” he said. “I feel a lot of people would get very complacent with ‘OK, I’ve learned this much.’ No, I constantly want to learn and push and find the boundaries of more and if somebody won’t give it to me, I’m going to find a way to get it.”

Karen Rosen for World Athletics