“All the Olympic medals. I don’t care who wants it. It’s mine,” the track and field fans may remember this quote and the speaker. Yes, Noah Lyles roared the words, after his 60m indoor victory this year after defeating Christian Coleman at the USA Indoor Championships. Since then, a lot of expectations and debates have followed him. He has tried to manage both, riding on his performances. However, things have not always fallen into place. But Noah Lyles is eyeing to compensate for everything in the upcoming US Olympics trials in Oregon.
Furthermore, he has a slogan in his mind to say after his performance in the 100m trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. Recently, in a conversation with former world champion Asafa Powell, Noah Lyles described those bits at length. Regarding the slogan, Noah thinks that it will engage the audience more, in spending their time finding out the reason for such a slogan. He said, “When I say the slogan after the hundred, it’s going to be all that the US is going to think about so for a whole month they’re going to be thinking ‘oh, Noah said that slogan and we’re going to put faith in him and that’s how I think.” However, such theatrics are not new to him.
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On the way to dethrone Usain Bolt from the record book, Noah Lyles is ready to compete in the four track and field events in the Paris Olympics – a humongous target as per even his coach, Lance Brauman. But Noah has a bagful of logic to back his goal. “Why four? I can grab three but Bolt has done that. I can do two Olympics in a row, but Bolt has done that too. I can do two Olympics in a row, but Bolt has done that too. A field event? Nope, been done. So I really have to look,” he explained. But what reasons do work in making such staggering announcements or slogans? The confident sprinter has the answer to this question as well.
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“I want to be at the moment. You know I want to create that moment for people and you know just running the race is not good enough in my head. If somebody runs in the woods and nobody’s there to see it, ‘did it happen?’ ”, Noah pointed while putting the answer. Still, while making the audiences more interested in the episodes, how can Noah be so sure about his success beforehand?
Noah Lyles is a man of confidence
Since last year, Noah Lyles has been steady on his goal to target the four gold medals. The Oregon trials coming in a few days will be his penultimate step to confirm his name in the two individual events (100m and 200m). However, Noah is not only confident of winning those events but also he is relying on himself to reach the top of the podium in all the events he will participate in Paris. Explaining his reason for nurturing such confidence, the Olympian said, “We worked on the 60 to help my 100 and my 200 and we’ve seen major progression in that.”
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Noteworthy, Noah Lyles has tasted success in the 60m event this year, which has helped him to improve his reaction time. In the 100m wind-aided contest in the Bermuda Grand Prix, Noah Lyles took 9.96 seconds to win the race. In that event, Noah’s reaction time created a buzz in the stadium. Additionally, his experience in the post-Tokyo Olympics has also worked wonders for him.
Describing that experience, he said, “To be honest, I think these last three years have all been build-ups. Now, if we look at last year in 2023, it was: ‘Okay, this is the blueprint for 2024.’ We nailed that so well, that now we’re just in an automatic pilot mode,” Because of the presence of such reasons, Noah Lyles could easily keep a slogan ready to give his fans a topic to think about.