Paris 2024: Noah Lyles credits Olympic bronze with success at World Championships - 'Reason I have so many gold medals'
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Published 24/06/2024 at 19:52 GMT
American athlete Noah Lyles has explained how the disappointment of finishing third in the 200 metres at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games helped him develop and go on to earn more world titles. The 26-year-old, who recently qualified for Paris 2024 with a personal best in the 100m, said the setback in Tokyo was the reason he now has "so many gold medals".
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Noah Lyles has credited his bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games with his subsequent success at the World Athletics Championships.
The 26-year-old was considered a favourite for gold in the 200 metres at Tokyo 2020, having earned his first world title over the distance two years prior.
He was beaten by fellow American Kenny Bednarek and Canada’s Andre De Grasse, however, and had to settle for bronze.
In the latest episode of Power of Olympics, Lyles explained how the disappointment of finishing third led to success at the World Championships. He has earned four more world titles since Tokyo 2020, including two in the 200m, one in 100m and one in the 4x100m.
"It [Olympic bronze medal] is the reason I have so many gold medals right now," Lyles said. "It is the reason I'm a six-time world champion, I would say.
"I feel that if I would have won gold that day, I would have become a little content in who I was."
He added: "I would have said to myself, maybe I don't have to change too much, or these goals that I want to attain, as long as I just keep doing whatever I'm doing, I'm gonna reach them.
"But it was very obvious that wasn't the case and there was still a lot for me to learn. But I feel that if I would have become content on that day, I wouldn't have gone out there to figure out what those things were."
Lyles qualified for Paris 2024 at the US Olympic trials, running a personal best of 9.83 seconds to win the 100m.
He finished ahead of Bednarek and 2022 world champion Fred Kerley, with Christian Coleman missing out on a place at the upcoming Olympics.
Lyles shared details of the sacrifices he regularly made in order to become a medal contender for Paris 2024, saying: "We're training nine to 10 months out of the year. And it's not just when you're on the track. It's constant. It's when you're at home. It's when you're sleeping.
"It's when you're deciding, do I go to the restaurant with my family, and which restaurants do we go to because I need to make sure that even though we're having fun, we're still doing it in a way that is moving towards that goal.
"It's a constant thing, a lot of sacrifices. But a lot of people believe that the sacrifices are hard. It's not hard if this is what you want. It becomes easy, because this is your dream."
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