Noah Lyles Redeems Himself at Prefontaine Classic With Record Run

The Tokyo Olympics were not very kind to American Track athletes as many of the favorites failed to win gold in events they dominated earlier in the year. One of them was Noah Lyles, who fell short in the men’s 200m race and won bronze rather than the gold that he aimed for. 

If minor setbacks, major comebacks was ever a reality, it could be applied in his case. At the Nike Prefontaine Classic 2021, Lyles stormed to win the 200m sprint at a blistering timing of 19.52 seconds, the fastest time this year in the event across all competitions! 

The Olympic bronze medalist stormed to the finish line to defeat fellow American Kenny Bednarek, who outpaced him in Tokyo for silver. Noah Lyles also competed on the same track as his brother Josephus, who has been making quite a name for himself lately. 

Josephus finished third in the race, behind Bednarek and above Canada’s Aaron Brown with a timing of 20.03 seconds. Lyles and Bednarek lived up to expectations and cracked the 10-second mark but the former stole to show with his comeback run.

Noah Lyles silenced the criticism after Tokyo

The track star managed to run 19.74 seconds in the 200m at the Olympics, while Bednarek ran 19.68. Andre De Grasse of Canada ran a national record of 19.62 seconds to win gold. However, he did not participate in the 200m event at the Pre-Classic, winning gold in the 100m race instead. 

An interesting participant in the 200 race was Rai Benjamin. The 400m hurdles star decided to drop the hurdles and the 400m to try his hand in the 200m race. He put on an impressive show to finish at 20.16 seconds and at fifth place.

Prior to the event, 110m hurdles specialist Grant Holloway tweeted his belief that Rai Benjamin would run 19.85 seconds and win the 200m race. However, he was forced to take his words back as Noah Lyles dominated the race. 

Learning from his mistakes in Tokyo, the 200m star is back and surely already has his sights set on Paris. Although it will be three long years to get there, he aims at gold and nothing short of it. 

posted Monday August 23rd
by Luke Dias