Sixty metres into the men’s 100m Olympic final in Paris and Noah Lyles is third, three hundredths of a second slower than his compatriot Fred Kerley and Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson.
And yet – and this may sound bizarre – that is exactly where he needs to be.
Lyles has unmatched top speed. He wins like Usain Bolt used to, by lengthening his stride (to a ridiculous 2.5m) and gaining ground on others before he passes. He holds his form while they struggle and slow down.
Lyles leads the way, winning by five thousandths of a second in the closest men’s 100-meter final ever — and the toughest to qualify for. Lyles (9.78 sec) ran the fastest time in an Olympic 100-meter final since Bolt’s Olympic record (9.63) in London in 2012.
In that last 40m, Lyles can outrun anyone. He did it in 2023 to win the World Championships and again in trials to reach Paris.
The final frontier for him to become an Olympic champion was the beginning… here’s the story of how a 75-year-old and a stick figure gave Lyles the edge.
“Your reaction time sucks,” says Ralph Mann.
It’s July 2023, and the former Olympian – he won silver in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1972 Munich Olympics – who has a doctorate in biomechanics, is helping coach Lyles with his block starts.
At Lyles’ training base in Clermont, Florida, Mann, now 75, has set up a tent trackside. There are a couple of cameras trained on the blocks and a laptop with software that will squeeze every last percent out of Lyles’ starts.
Lyles at the start of the semi-final in Paris (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
Over the past 40 years, Mann has watched and collected data on more than 500 of the best athletes. “We know what it takes to be an elite starter,” he says. Mann has written a 300-page textbook on the mechanics of sprinting and hurdling. What he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.
Mann has applied that knowledge and decades of experience to a software, created in 1999, that generates a stickman that overlays video of the sprinter in the blocks. Adjusted for body size and weight (according to Lyles), it shows where the limbs should be as the sprinter places the blocks and jumps out. If you’ve ever played a Mario Kart ghost race, that’s what it’s like, only applied to sprinting.
They can watch frame by frame how Lyles moves compared to the most effective/efficient method. It becomes a coaching tool for the session with real time feedback.
Lyles’ problems were that his hips were too far back when he started and his foot turn was poor in the first few steps. Compared to the stickman, Lyles was not compact enough in the drive phase (as athletes get up to speed), his feet were too high between steps and his contact time (how long the feet are on the ground) was too long. His ankles were also not stiff enough.
In short, there was still plenty of room for improvement.
That meant that steps four through seven, which are all about increasing reach after stepping out on the first three, would fall short compared to better starters. Mann explained to Lyles that the only way to get faster was to shorten the time between steps and minimize contact time. White tape was placed horizontally across the track to give Lyles a visual representation of where he should land on specific steps (three and seven).
Lyles knows how the model works. When he asks Mann what he has set, he replies, “Whatever we need to make you famous.” Lyles speaks in terms of what works according to the model, in terms of its form, rather than what feels good. He has thrown himself into it completely.
Loud and to some almost arrogant, Lyles shows vulnerability with Mann.
“Show me how your precious model beats me,” he says, imploring Mann to make the model better than Lyles’ absolute best. “Let it run away, let me be embarrassed,” says Lyles. At one point, Mann stands above Lyles in the blocks and physically thrusts his hips forward into the set position. Lyles, half joking, half serious, says he feels like he’s not even in the blocks.
In February there were already the first signs of this work.
After six previous losses, Lyles finally defeated Christian Coleman in the indoor 60m. Coleman (6.34sec) is the world record holder, but Lyles beat him by a hundredth to take the U.S. indoor title in 6.43. Coleman came out faster, quicker with his foot turn and was the first to reach his second step, but Lyles was in the race enough (sixth halfway, 30m) to close hard and take it to the line — you’ll see a theme emerge.
For someone who couldn’t break 6.5sec in 2023, that was huge. Coleman then beat Lyles at the World Indoors in Glasgow in March, but Lyles ran 6.47 in the semi-final and 6.44 in the final.
And now to Paris.
Mann was right: Lyles’ reaction times really are crap, at least by Olympic standards. He was the slowest to react in the final (178 milliseconds, tied with Letsile Tebogo), 26th of the 27 semifinalists (167 ms), and 46 of the 70 men in the heats, who didn’t have false starts, reacted faster (161 ms).
That’s one of the hardest parts to train for. No one wants to make a false start at the Olympics, and the 80,000-capacity Stade de France is noisy. Lyles’ slower reaction time than others didn’t help, but it wouldn’t make the difference between gold and silver.
Lyles, in lane seven because he finished third in his semifinal, takes his second and third steps ahead of Thompson in lane three. It shows a great turn of foot, considering he was the last to step out.
His form and mechanics are good, although he doesn’t accelerate as quickly through the drive phase as the Jamaican, or Tokyo 2020 100m champion Marcell Jacobs. Lyles was last until 40m, but at 30m he was moving at the same speed as Thompson.
The 60m split is the one that counts: 6.44. Lyles is suddenly third, having climbed four places from the 50m mark, past Jacobs (lane nine), Akani Simbine (lane five), Tobogo and Oblique Seville. The latter two are outside and inside Lyles, respectively.
8 frames, 1 iconic 100m final 🖼️#Paris2024 photo.twitter.com/0Q6ItW3e4j
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) August 4, 2024
“I was lucky to have Seville next to me because all year long he was hitting that acceleration that I wasn’t hitting,” Lyles said. “I wasn’t going to let him go.”
Although, as Mann once said, “Noah’s biggest competitor is Noah.” His 60m split in the final was just one-hundredth of what he did at the US Indoors. At the Paris Diamond League in June 2023, Lyles won in 9.97, running the 60m in 6.55. He saved one of his best starts ever for the final.
Thompson and Fred Kerley went through 60m in 6.41sec, but both had already reached terminal velocity and were slowing down. Lyles peaked a little later than the pair and held his form longer, slowing down more slowly.
Lyles’ extra stride length adds up. Over the entire race, Lyles (44) took one less step than Thompson (45). The Jamaican may be bigger than Lyles in terms of arm and leg size, but strong arms can only carry an athlete so far to the finish. There’s no substitute for good mechanics.
Lyles was last in the 40 meters, seventh at the halfway point…
His speed and tenacity are astonishing.
You can see the slight difference in the last two 10 meter splits. He ran .84 and .86 versus Thompson’s .85 and .87
What a race. What a close one. photo.twitter.com/fpBAE06QJL
— Steve Magness (@stevemagness) August 4, 2024
Lyles completed the final 40m in 3.35sec, the fastest of the race. Thompson closed in 3.38. Five others, except Simbine who finished a solid fourth, completed the final 40m in 3.4sec or slower. “I wasn’t patient enough with my speed — I should have let it carry me to the finish,” Thompson said.
In his book — it’s a textbook, really — Mann names a series of athletes as the best in certain categories. There are the most talented, the most professional, the most driven, the best representatives of the sport, but he puts Lyles as one of his favorites.
After winning the gold medal in the 100 metres in Paris and having a real chance of doubling in the 200 metres, Lyles should also put Mann among the favourites.
“Ralph Mann, before I left for Paris, said this is how close the first and second would be,” Lyles said, bringing his index finger and thumb close together to gesture for an inch. “I can’t believe how right he was.”
GO DEEPER
Noah Lyles’ mouth wrote the check. On the Olympic podium, his feet cashed it
(Top photo: Andy Cheung/Getty Images)
