Noah Lyles closed out the U.S. championships Sunday in style by doing a nifty little dance after taking the men’s 200 title in 19.78. He held off Atlanta’s Christian Coleman.
“Joy? Tons of joy. This is the hardest team to make,” said Lyles, who sprayed his hair silver. “The saying is, once you make the U.S. team, you better come away with a medal.”
The 22-year-old Lyles cruised to the win over Coleman, 23. After crossing the finish line, Lyles, still on the run, reached over to shake hands with Coleman, who attended Our Lady of Mercy High School in Fayetteville.
After that, the real show was on. Lyles held one finger up to the crowd as if to say, wait a second, something big is about to go down — and proceeded to break out a high-energy dance. Later, he perched himself on a railing as he took selfie after selfie with the fans.
“This was one of the things I wanted to happen this year and the highest on the list,” Lyles said.
Time to update that list.
Coleman captured the 100 title at nationals. Round 2 is coming up in Doha in late September. His main adversary heading into the Tokyo Olympics in a year just might be 37-year-old Justin Gatlin, who's the defending champion and elected to sit out Friday's race.
“He’s a beast,” Coleman said of Gatlin. “He’s going to go down as an all-time great.”
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