Triple world champion Noah Lyles has opened up about the main thing that cost him victory in the men’s 200m at the Paris Olympic Games, ruling out COVID-19.
Lyles was a favourite to win the race, following his impressive runs in the season where he had been unbeaten in the distance. He was even planning to attack Usain Bolt’s 200m world record time of 19.19 seconds.
However, Lyles could only afford a third-place finish in 19.70 seconds as Motswana youngster Letsile Tebogo claimed the win in an African record time of 19.62 seconds. Kenny Bednarek finished second in the race, clocking 19.62 to cross the finish line.
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In an interview with the Spun, Lyles explained that if he would have gone back to race the final, he would have taken a totally different approach in the race. He disclosed that after the semifinal, where he finished second behind Tebogo, he had used up all his energy and had to change his way of running.
Lyles noted that the strategy he had implemented was not the best and his girlfriend, Junelle Bromfield tried to warn him about it but he did not listen. However, he promised to have changed his ways going forward.
“The strategy that we were going for was I was going to give all of my energy upfront because I didn’t know if it would come at the end. I knew from running in the semifinal that my top-end speed was no longer with me. You could say that COVID had it under hostage, but I wasn’t producing the top-end speeds I was normally producing in the last few weeks, which had been very high,” Lyles said.
“I was trying to rely on how fast I could get up to top speed and my ability to be able to hold top speed. It got me the bronze medal but it wasn’t enough for me to do better. Now my girlfriend has said many times that I’m never allowed to use that strategy again and I’m in full belief with her that I will never use that strategy again,” he added.
The reigning Olympic champion added that he does not usually implement that race strategy and that was the reason behind his not so great performance. He singled out his girlfriend, Junelle Bromfield as one of the people who advised her not to practice the strategy.
“Looking back, it’s not normally my race strategy. My normal race strategy is a lot more timed and paced, and it’s actually the same strategy I used back in Tokyo (in the 2020 200m final) and it got me the same result,” he said.
