Lyles’ record-setting run in Atlanta sets off silent alarm in sleepy men’s 100m season

Shout out to South African sprinter Akani Simbine, for running a world-leading 9.90 to win the men’s 100 metres at the Atlanta City Games last Saturday, and restoring a hint of order to the world list in the track and field’s highest-profile discipline. 

Before Simbine’s breakout run, the world leading time belonged to Christian Miller, a high school senior from Florida who ran 9.93 back in April. Other early entrants to this season’s sub 10-second club included Kendal Williams, a past world junior champion, and Brandon Hicklin, a former NCAA star in his rookie year on the pro circuit.

They’re all fine sprinters, obviously. Wind-legal results don’t lie. But they’re not the needle-moving superstars we might have expected to put up big numbers in late May of an Olympic year. No eye-catching 100-metre results yet from established Americans like Fred Kerley or Christian Coleman, even with the Diamond League Prefontaine Classic, slated for this Saturday in Eugene, Oregon.

If you asked me for one word to describe top-tier elite men’s 100-metre sprinting as we head into U.S. Memorial Day weekend, I’d use “dormant.” 

What, then, do we make of Noah Lyles’ blistering 150-metre run in Atlanta? Lyles, who won the 100/200 double in Budapest last summer, and has emerged as the main character in NBC’s pre-Olympic ad campaign, finished in 14.41 seconds to equal Tyson Gay’s American record. So if the men’s 100 metres is like a volcano that has yet to erupt, Lyles’ record-setting run could be the puffs of smoke warning us to brace for an explosion.

Projecting results in one race based on data from neighbouring distances is more art than science. Any prediction depends heavily on the individual athlete, and the circumstances of each race. Hardcore track stat nerds have marvelled at Su Bingtian since 2021, when, in an Olympic 100-metre semi final, the Chinese sprinter ran the fastest 60-metre split ever recorded – 6.29 seconds.

He finished that race in 9.83 seconds, a personal best by a wide margin, but good for 15th-best all time. Your math might tell you Su’s 6.29 put him on pace for a world record, but in the final analysis, he loses ground to faster finishers.

Still, adding Lyles’ sizzling 150 to the improved acceleration he showcased during indoor season signals he’s ready to post some impressive results in the open 100.

WATCH | Discussing latest in a busy weekend on CBC Sport’s Athletics North:

Wait, am I really ready to read that much meaning into a 150? Isn’t it a novelty of a hybrid distance that high-level competitors rarely contest?

Sort of.

It’s true that we rarely see world-class sprinters in 150-metre races, and the distance might still bear the stench of the ill-fated showdown between Donovan Bailey and Michael Johnson at SkyDome in 1997.

Track and field athletes know that 150 metres is a fundamental, foundational, workhorse of a sprint interval. It’s short enough for full effort, yet long enough to make the final few strides uncomfortable. Long enough to test a sprinter’s staying power, but short enough to repeat a few times. It’s a mainstay of training programs for raw high schoolers, world record-setters, and everyone in between.

Approaching Bolt’s postal code?

So when Lyles burst from the blocks last Saturday, he had a lifetime of 150s in his muscle memory, and knew just how he wanted to distribute his energy.

Evenly.

He put enough effort into the first 100 metres to open a gap between himself and Hughes, but held enough in reserve to crush the final 50 and finish in 14.41 seconds. It’s a significant improvement over last May, when Lyles ran 14.56, and it’s the second-fastest 150 in history.

We know who owns the top spot, of course, and Lyles’ latest run is another hint that, even if he’s not ready to surpass the GOAT, he is nearing Usain Bolt’s postal code.

WATCH | Noah Lyles speaks at World Athletics Indoor Championships in March:

Noah Lyles confident, comfortable heading into the Paris Olympics

Speaking at the World Athletics Indoor Championships, the American sprinter says he wants to use his platform to bring athletics to a new level.

When Lyles laid down that 6.43-second 60 metre dash this past winter, we wondered if he was ready for another breakthrough.

Stats from that race said Lyles covered his final 10 metres in .81 seconds, a top speed previously only reached by Bolt himself. That number could have been an anomaly, or a glitch in the electronic timing system, but a closer look at Saturday’s stats signals that the peak speed reading from that indoor race wasn’t a fluke.

Lyles covered the final 100 metres of Saturday’s race in 8.70 seconds.

Very few people in history have covered that much ground, that quickly.

Sometimes we’ll see an 8.7 on the anchor leg of a 4×100-metre relay, but only if that anchor runner is Bolt or Asafa Powell. It’s also worth remembering that relay legs are staggered, and the anchor might actually run just shy of 100 metres. Otherwise, only one person other than Lyles has recorded an 8.70-second mid-race 100. 

Bolt.

And he only did it once, when he set the world record in 2009.

In the 200, American Kenny Bednarek has already laid down his marker, rocketing to a world-leading 19.67 two weeks ago at the Diamond League meet in Doha, Qatar. But the 100 is still looking for some clarity, and a breakout performance from a brand-name sprinter.

Currently 14 sprinters are clustered between 9.99 and 10.02 seconds. That group includes Malachi Murray, whose 10.01 leads all Canadian men this season, but doesn’t include Fred Kerley, even though the 2022 world champ has vowed to break Bolt’s record the next time he runs a 100. Kerley still hasn’t surpassed the 10.03 he ran to open the season.

Lyles is part of that pack. Entering this week, his 10.01 season-best tied him for seventh in the world. Except there’s no wondering whether he’ll improve on that mark. The only questions are just how fast he’ll run when he drops a fast time, and, most importantly, how will the other big names at 100 metres respond.

Last weekend, Lyles served notice.

Every other big-name 100-metre sprinter is on the clock.