We don’t need to tell you that the 100m field this year looks extremely competitive. One glance at the 2025 world lead list and you’ll know it. That’s because 22 men have already achieved sub-10-second timings this year. But surprisingly, the reigning 100m World and Olympic Champ Noah Lyles is missing from this list. We’re just 3 months away from the World Championships in Tokyo, and he is completely off the radar. No wonder his absence has now started to raise eyebrows, more because his top competitors have bounced right back in the business.
We’re nine days into June 2025, and Noah Lyles is yet to open his season in the 100m. He has run 6 races so far: four in the 60 metres, one in the 400 metres, and a third in the 4x100m relay quartet. But interestingly, he hasnt run a single race in either of the distances he shall be out to defend in Tokyo soon. And his 100 and 200 metre absence is now starting to concern an American track and field coach.
On June 9, Coach Rob Track and Field added a YouTube video titled, “Can Noah Lyles Catch Every 100m Threat Before it’s Too Late?” Well, this isn’t just a title. This might be a legit question that many would be asking, including Coach Rob himself. He said, “Everybody else on the world stage who wants to be there at the World
Championships has had to run by now and they have run multiple races for the most part. So we’re starting to get an idea of who’s legit and who is not.” Whereas Noah has been out of the scene entirely.
He then grouped Noah Lyles’ competitors into 3 categories. The real contenders to Noah Lyles’ throne this season as per Coach Rob, are athletes like Kishane Thompson, Kenny Bednarek, Akani Simbine, and Trayvon Bromell. These 4 have a few commonalities. They have run multiple 100m races this season, so they are in touch. All of them have dipped sub-10s multiple times in these past months. Especially Bromell and Thompson, who have joined the club quite recently, after the Rome Diamond League and the Racers Grand Prix. And Kenny? Oh, he has been in some spotless form so far with his Grand Slam Track 100m three-peat.
No wonder, looking at all these dynamics, Coach Rob opined, “Regardless of what the clock has to say when he [Noah Lyles] shows up in championships, for the last two years now, he’s figured out how to be the man in front when it was all done. But I’m pretty sure doing it this year is going to be harder than all the rest of them because like I said before the man has a whole bunch of competition that is gunning for him…”
Coach Rob looked at these performance trends and said, “If the first half of this season is any indication, him [Lyles] going out there to win this championship is going to be even harder than anything he’s ever done up until now….” It’s clear that the odds are stacked against Lyles this season.
This story is developing…
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