By Anderson Emerole
December 2, 2024
Love to hate him or hate to love him, it wouldn’t be a regular week in track and field if Noah Lyles wasn’t in the news.
In a recent interview with LetsRun, he stirred up controversy by claiming that “No one cares about the 200m.”
In a wide-ranging interview, he touched on a variety of different topics including his upcoming race with Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (details still TBD) and his hesitancy to sign with Grand Slam Track until he knows where the league’s inaugural season will be broadcast. However, it was the 200m comment that drew the most criticism from the public online.
There are parts of me that actually agree with Lyles when you put the full question and his answer into context. There are parts of me that think he’s completely missed the mark.
Here is the full exchange:
Weldon Johnson (LetsRun founder): When you think ahead to 2025, you’ve had such success in the 100m in the last two years, if I made you pick one – 2025 World 100m champion or 2025 World 200m champion?
Noah Lyles: 100m champion. Nobody cares about the 200m. I learned that very quickly after breaking the American record and losing to Mondo for Athlete of the Year. I was like, ‘They don’t care. They don’t care about the 200m. It’s fun to watch but at the end of the day, the common people, non-track and field athletes – they don’t care about the 200m. It’s the 100m. That’s why when Bolt was winding down, he stuck with the 100m. Because the 200m wasn’t going to get him extra dough. Ya know? It was all about the 100m. Everyone wants to know the fastest man in the world.
Additional Context
Lyles is a three-time World champion at 200m and ran 19.31 to break the American record. He currently sits as the third-fastest man in history – only behind Bolt and Yohan Blake. He has the most career sub-20.00, sub-19.90 and sub-19.80 performances in history. When talking about the 200m, the only major career accolades missing from his resume is the 200m Olympic gold and world record. You could make the argument that he’s checked off every other box for a 200m sprinter.
In the 100m, he hasn’t accomplished nearly as much. He is the reigning World champion and Olympic champion, which is some serious success but pales in comparison to his accomplishments in the 200m. He also isn’t the fastest among his peers. His personal best of 9.79 only puts him at No. 12 on the all-time list and it’s slower than some of his contemporaries like Fred Kerley, Christian Coleman, Trayvon Bromell, Kishane Thompson and even Ferdinand Omanyala, who’s never finished higher than 7th in a global final.
As it pertains to the specific question that he was asked regarding a medal at next year’s World Championships in Tokyo, a gold in the 100m would add to his legacy in the 100m, moving closer to his accomplishments in the 200m.
The Justified Fame Of The 100m
Since winning the 100m in Budapest and Paris, there’s no denying that Lyles has increased his fame, visibility, and the attention around him. Lyles has been the best 200m runner in the world since Bolt retired. You could make the case that he’s either the second- or third-best 200m runner in history behind Bolt and Michael Johnson. Despite his generational talent and big personality, Lyles didn’t get much worldwide attention until he started winning over the 100m.
Even after winning the 100m in Budapest, the debate continued to swirl about whether Lyles should be considered the “fastest man in the world.” The Olympic 100m title solidified his claim, but needing a second win only underscored the lack of recognition he’d held previously in the mainstream sports audience. It’s hard to truly question the label of “World’s Fastest Man” that Lyles now holds.
Take a look at the latest video from Mr. Beast where Lyles was racing against a normal person on the track. The YouTuber introduced Lyles as “the fastest human on earth” and said that no one could beat him in a race.
That being said, Bolt is still alive. Last time I checked, Kishane Thompson still has the fastest time in the world for 2024. But in YouTube land, that doesn’t matter because he won the Olympic gold medal in the 100m, which allows the general public to see him as the fastest man in the world. That’s a breakthrough that he’s been looking for and never got for his 200m resume.
Some other context to add is that Lyles was asked about the 200m in the same interview:
Jonathan Gault (LetsRun senior writer): So do you now feel unfinished business though in the 200m given the two bronzes at the Olympics and with [Letsile] Tebogo. I know you weren’t 100% in Paris –
Lyles: I definitely have unfinished business but I’m not going to gain it through World championships. It’s an Olympic title at 200m that’s where I’m going to gain that satisfaction of. Not that I’m saying I don’t want to win. I’m not giving up anything. You’re still going to have to beat me.
He’ll have to wait until 2028 for a chance at that title so in the meantime focusing on that 100m makes perfect sense.
Issues With Lyles’s Statement
Even though he was asked about the World Championships… Even though he clarified he wants the Olympic gold at 200m… Even though he spoke highly of Letsile Tebogo in the same interview… his comments do come off as downplaying the 200m, which I think is completely wrong,
I think we can all acknowledge that with so many events and track and field, certain ones will be given more spotlight than others like the 100m, 1500m, the marathon, etc. Those are always going to be the premier events. But when one of the most popular athletes in the sport is saying that an event doesn't matter or no one cares about it, it’s both inaccurate and downplays the work other athletes put into that event, both inside the track world and outside of it.
People do care that Letsile Tebogo won the 200m Olympic gold.
People do care that Kenny Bednarek is one of the fastest 200-meter athletes in history.
People do care that Andre de Grasse has been super consistent in championships, with three global medals and an Olympic title..
And yes, people care that Lyles has three consecutive World titles and will be in a tough battle to potentially win his fourth next year in Tokyo.
People also care about Yohan Blake's 19.26 or Frankie Fredericks and his battles with Michael Johnson during the 1990s. They remember Tommie Smith's 19.83 world record back in 1968. In the track world, we care about all those things.
But for a casual fan in the general public, if all they know about is Lyles and his 100m gold and are potentially looking to get more interested in the sport, it feels like Lyles is telling them, ‘Listen, that event over there, that doesn't even matter. Just focus on the 100m. That's all that you should be watching.’
Yes, he gave additional context as to how it relates to the Olympic 200m and the fact that he still wants to win the gold medal in Tokyo next year. But none of that is fully contextualized for the wider public. The clip that gets shared is simply Noah saying that no one cares about the 200m. It helps create a permission structure for the general public to just tune out of the event, which does matter when talking about the sport as a whole.
Back in 2019, World Athletics announced they would be cutting a few events from the Diamond League the following year. The events cut included the triple jump, the discus, the steeplechase, and the 200 meter dash. At the time, WA cited research showing that certain events just weren't as popular in terms of viewership or too similar to others. In November 2019, Noah himself expressed disappointment, tweeting out: “Wow, No. 200.” It was just after he won his first World championship title in the 200m. And yet, look at how things have changed now that he’s shifted his focus to the 100m and secured the popularity that comes with it.
The Athlete Of The Year Gripe
In all reality, Lyles was likely not winning Athlete of the Year in 2022 regardless of which event his World title came in. That year, Mondo Duplantis won the gold medal in the pole vault at the World Indoor Championships, World Championships, European Championship, Diamond League final and broke the world record on three separate occasions. Noah had a strong season, but he would’ve had to have done way more to supplant Duplantis.
Editor’s Note: In a twist of irony, shortly after Anderson recorded his video, Letsile Tebogo, Olympic 200m champion, won the Athlete of the Year award over, you guessed it, Mondo Duplantis, who had a near identical season to 2022, winning World Indoors, the Olympics, European Championships, and the Diamond League, as well as breaking the world record three times once again, including at the Olympics. Tebogo’s storyline this season with the loss of his mother and his fortitude in coming back to win the Olympics and have a successful Diamond League post season, as well as the broader significance of his win for African sprinting, clearly won over popular opinion. World Athletics indicated this choice had in fact been made by a fan vote, absolving themselves of responsibility for the choice on this occasion.
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Anderson Emerole
Anderson Emerole is an analyst and contributor to CITIUS MAG. He runs The Final Leg, a YouTube channel with up-to-date commentary on track and field news.