2024 Olympics: After making good on his 100m promises, Noah Lyles turns up the heat for the 200m

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PARIS — Just an hour away from capturing Olympic glory in the 100 meters by the narrowest possible margin, American sprint sensation Noah Lyles was already beginning to look ahead to his next potential moment of triumph.

When asked how confident he felt about winning the men’s 200 meters later this week and completing the Olympic sprint double, Lyles grinned and said, “Pretty confident, I can’t lie.”

Lyles has hinted that he sees fellow American Kenny Bednarek as his most formidable challenger, reaching the 200-meter final at the Olympic Trials earlier this summer. Bednarek “absolutely woke me up,” Lyles said, when he shot out of the blocks, ran a personal best and led until the final 20 meters of the race.

“My job is to make sure that…” Lyles said, before changing his mind and insisting he would leave it at that. Lyles might have resisted the urge to say more if fellow Olympic 100-meter bronze medalist Fred Kerley hadn’t been sitting next to Lyles on the podium.

“You’re talking nonsense, man,” Kerley said with a grin.

“That guy doesn’t win,” Lyles said of Bednarek. “None of them win. When I come off the turn, they’re all depressed.”

Pre-race jabs from Lyles shouldn’t be anything new to Bednarek or the other leading contenders in the 200. After all, Lyles has been telling anyone who will listen for months that he plans to take home four gold medals in Paris. He recently confidently told AFP: “I’ll beat anyone I touch.”

On Sunday night, on the garish purple track of the Stade de France, Lyles backed up his big words and cemented his claim to the title of world’s fastest man. He won America’s first gold medal in the men’s 100 meters in 20 years, running a personal best of 9.78 seconds to edge out Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by just a step or two.

That may have been the rest of the world’s best chance to humiliate Lyles, who is nearly unbeatable in the 200. The event reduces the impact of his slow starts and maximizes his talents. He maintains his speed as well as any sprinter since Usain Bolt, allowing him to typically outpace everyone in front of him as he turns the corner and sprints toward the finish line.

The other sprinters who have the best chance of pushing Lyles are Bednarek and Erryon Knighton, the two other Americans in the field. Bednarek is the 2021 Olympic silver medalist in the 200. Knighton, just 20, has won world championship medals in the 200 the past two years.

“Just know I’m always a threat every time I step on the court,” Bednarek said Saturday.