Paris Diamond League 2023: Noah Lyles wins 100m; Olympic champ Jacobs seventh
The 200m world champion wins in Paris in 9.97 into a headwind, just beating out Kenya's Ferdinand Omanyala.
Athletics
It was billed as a showdown between Olympic 100m champion Marcell Jacobs and world 200m champion Noah Lyles at the Paris Diamond League athletics meeting on Friday (9 June).
But in the end, it was nothing of the sort, with Lyles leading the men's 100m race from the front and Jacobs lagging behind after appearing to start powerfully out of the blocks.
The American Lyles instead found himself in a close race with Kenya's Ferdinand Omanyala, the African record holder; Lyles won with a dip at the line to edge his Kenyan rival out by a hundredth of a second, clocking 9.97 seconds.
Jacobs, meanwhile, was unable to sustain his start and quickly fell behind the pack, crossing in seventh place in 10.21.
The Italian Olympic champ has struggled with injuries since his triumph at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in 2021, and on this form has a lot of work to do ahead of this summer's World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in August.
Botswana's Letsile Tebogo came third in the race in 10.05.
Lyles said afterwards: "9.97 - that was the time that I ran? Wow! All my preparation was about the first 30m. The race was great, I set it up the way I needed it to be. It feels good to win here.
"The focus is on the first 30m, the start - I had to make sure that it is fast and then build on it, then it will be a fast good race. It was a fun run today, with a big crowd, they got me energised, I love that. It makes me want to come back here."