Noah Lyles eager to begin defense of 200m title with 'Hayward Magic' a factor at 2022 Track and Field World Championships

“Everything that I didn't have in Tokyo, I now have here at this world championships,” said reigning 200m world champion Noah Lyles of the United States ahead of the 2022 World Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

For the 24-year-old that includes his younger, by some 369 days, brother Josephus.

“I remember me and Josephus were at relay camp and we were just in the dorms and I was like, ‘Dang bro, I happy you're here bro,’ because I'd have to be having to go to lunch by myself and not know if I was going to sit with anybody,” Noah Lyles recalled with a laugh. “But you know, it was always better to have your brother there, you know, your best friend.”

Noah Lyles captured bronze a year ago at the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing: Josephus.

The two are more than brothers or even best friends, they’ve become training partners with each pushing the other to be better each day in practice.

“In training, we push each other very hard,” said Josephus Lyles, who is part of the 4x100m relay pool for Team USA, during an exclusive interview with the brothers for Olympics.com. “Me and Noah just go at it in training all the time. We have a very good relationship where we always push each other but never too hard, where it's too much of a rivalry, but always just enough. We can get the most out of each other.”

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But Josephus Lyles says his influence goes beyond the track.

“I'm the person who's more like, ‘Okay, this is what we need to do. This is what you need to have,’” explained Josephus Lyles. “So literally, even coming here, we're getting in the car and we're driving to the airport. I'm like, ‘Noah, you have your passport?’ He's like, ‘I don't need my passport.’ ‘Yeah, you need your passport to get your credential.’ So, we turned around, drove back home.”

Noah Lyles will need his credential on Monday (18 July) – his 25th birthday - when heats for the 200m get underway.

Disappointed with his Tokyo performance, he’s eager – and growing more so with each passing day – to defend the world title he won three years ago in Doha.

“I remember as a kid, I would ask my mom for something [for my birthday] and her answer would always be, ‘We'll see.’ And because of that answer, I just remember wanting it that much more, that much more and that much more,” he recalled. “And as the days get closer, you know, your excitement bubbles up, and then, it really gets going and you can't even sleep the next morning. That's how much I want to defend my title.”

Since Tokyo, Lyles has done the work – including off the track, doubling up on sessions with his therapist ahead of these championships.
That work has manifested in his confidence.

“I believe that this is going to be my best year ever. Truthfully. And it really has been shaping into that. As I get closer and closer, of course, to world championships, I truly don't believe that I'm going to run my fastest this year at world championships,” admitted Lyles. “I believe I'm going to run very fast, but I don't think I'm going to run my fastest. I think it's going to happen later in the year. And just keeping that mindset going has definitely been keeping me hungry, keeping me active.”

He's already been fast in 2022.

At the U.S. championships in June, Lyles ran a 19.67 to capture the title, a harbinger, he said at the time, of faster times ahead.

“I know something big is coming. I know it,” he said. “I feel it in my jellies.”

He’ll also feel the support of a home crowd and maybe a little bit of the famed ‘Hayward magic.’

“I’ve got a really good connection with Hayward [Field]. I've run my second fastest time all-time. I've broken the high school national record on this track. I've run countless PRs here,” said Lyles. “To be honest, this... Hayward Magic is real. It's definitely real for me, I'll tell you that.”