Noah Lyles analyses his 100m win at Paris Olympics & how Oblique Seville made it possible

Noah Lyles analyses his 100m win at Paris Olympics & how Oblique Seville made it possible

Abigael Wafula 19:46 - 01.10.2024

Noah Lyles has credited Oblique Seville’s early race tactics for pushing him to victory in the 100m final at the Paris Olympic Games, reacting to the Jamaican youngster's moves to maintain a competitive edge and ultimately winning the race through a well-timed lean at the finish.

Noah Lyles has analysed his 100m race at the Paris Olympic Games and explained how Oblique Seville played a huge role in his win.

The triple world champion was glad to have Seville, the Jamaican wunderkind, since he was the only athlete who had beaten him twice this season and he did not want a repeat of the same. Oblique Seville first beat Noah Lyles at the Racers Grand Prix before shocking the latter in the men’s 100m semifinal at the Paris Olympic Games.

Going into the final, Noah Lyles wanted to be close to Seville so that when the Jamaican youngster made a move, he would also react and go head-to-head with him.

“From my point of view, the gun goes off, Oblique Seville (of Jamaica) is on my left and he’s beaten me the last two times that we’ve competed, but I knew exactly where he had been winning the race from,” Noah Lyles told The Spun.

“I knew if he made his move early in the race, that’s when I’d need to make my move as well. I tried to make sure as much as possible that we were going at the same time or that I wasn’t lagging behind.

“I remember him making his move at around the 30m mark and I was like, ‘I need to go. I need to hammer.’ So, I’m hammering, I’m hammering, I clear Oblique Seville and I’m still going. I see everyone else to my left - barely. I could see Kishane and I knew I needed to just put my legs into the track and start moving.”

After clearing Seville, Noah Lyles continued making his move and at the 80m mark, he was unsure of where he stood since there was a pack of athletes still running in the front. As they approached the finish line, the three-time world 200m champion explained that he knew he needed to lean and that saved the day for him.

After crossing the finish line, Lyles noted that he did not know who had taken the win and initially, he thought Kishane Thompson had a better chance at taking the crown. On the flip side, Kishane Thompson thought Lyles had won and Lyles disclosed that they could not get to hear what Fred Kerley had to say.

“We get to the 80m and now I’m like ‘I’m in the front but don’t know where in the front.’ I’m in the main pack. We get to the 90, I know I’m up high in the pack - maybe second or first but I can’t see past lane four. At that point I know I’m just, I know I need to lean,” Lyles said.

“I find leaning very specific. I am a throw-your-arm-out leaner because when you throw out the arm you lead with your chest and - as many people learned - it’s the chest that crosses first that determines who is the winner.

“But we were all in a situation where we didn’t know what happened. For a while, I was like ‘Did I win?’, ‘Did I get second?’, ‘Did I even medal?’, ‘What’s going on?’. Those were the seconds of our lives. We were down there forever waiting for them to look at this photo.”

After the screen came up and Lyles saw his name, he admitted to being in disbelief and noted that he just went for a lean that carried the day and saw him make history.

Tags: