Lyles is also the star of the Netflix Sprint documentary and Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, believes that his victory will become a hugely significant moment for the sport. “If I’m wearing a promoter’s hat, then him winning last night was important, because he’s now creating a narrative that is heading us back into Usain Bolt territory and that is hugely important,” said Coe.
“It’s a recognisable face. It’s a face that has now got young people talking about athletics. Friends of mine who’ve got young kids, they’re now talking about Noah Lyles in the same breath as some of the highest profile sportsmen and women in the world. He is beginning to transcend the sport, which is really what we want them all to do.”
As an athlete, Coe also particularly admired how Lyles delivered on the biggest stage after being beaten in the heat by Britain’s Louie Hinchliffe and in the semi-final by Jamaica’s Oblique Seville. “Like all great individuals in sport and great teams, when it really matters they tend to find a way of winning,” he said. “He was never ahead in that race until the last frame of that photo finish. It was his kingdom – I saw a completely different Noah on the line in the final. I thought he looked slightly tentative in the first round, but he grew in stature.
“Your performance is your passport but promotion is everything. It’s not enough to be just another Olympic champion or another world champion – he wants to fill a stadium, he also wants to fill a press conference. And actually what he has to say is profoundly important for the sport.”
Coe also said that he had no issues with deciding a gold medal by just 0.005sec; a margin of victory that would once have been impossible to measure. “If you have the technology, you have to use it,” he said. “If somebody’s saying it’s a couple of thousandths, so be it. You speak to my kids or younger, they’re not fazed by the fact that somebody got across the line two thousandths of a second. They think it’s rather cool, actually.”
