Noah Lyles tied Usain Bolt’s record number of world titles in the 200m, Bolt’s trademark event.
Lyles won a fourth consecutive world 200m title, matching Bolt’s run of four in a row from 2009 through 2015.
Lyles, coming back from a spring ankle injury and bronze in last Sunday’s 100m, clocked 19.52 seconds, edging countryman Kenny Bednarek (19.58 for silver) and Jamaican Bryan Levell (19.64 for bronze).
“I wanted to run faster,” Lyles said after matching his time from 2023 Worlds. “I was truthfully coming out here with the idea of coming after my American record (19.31 seconds). I just didn’t have it.”
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Lyles entered worlds as the world’s fastest 200m man of 2025 (19.63), though all three of his wins earlier this season were by less than a tenth of a second — .02 and .09 to Olympic gold medalist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana and .04 to Bednarek.
As Lyles trained in Amsterdam from Aug. 10 to Sept. 5, he had rough practices and some of the worst starts of his career.
“Constantly having to believe that because I have (succeeded) in the past, I can still do it now,” he said.
Lyles re-established his dominance in Thursday’s semifinals, running 19.51, the fastest semifinal time in history. Yet this was the closest of his four world titles.
“I could have easily gassed myself out,” he said. “That’s a testament to how much training we were able to get in, even with the injury.”
He’s already looking forward to 2027 Worlds in Beijing, when he can break his tie with Bolt at the site of Bolt’s Olympic breakout in 2008.
“So you’re saying if I get one more, I’ll be the only one to do it?” Lyles told Lewis Johnson on NBC Sports. “Woo, I can’t wait for 2027.”
Since placing fourth at the 2016 Olympic Trials at age 18, Lyles has been defeated just three times in outdoor 200m races in the last nine years — taking bronze at the last two Olympics, plus to Michael Norman at a 2019 Diamond League meet in Rome.
Lyles said this world title was not redemption for the Olympics.
“I don’t think any amount of World Championship wins in the 200m will ever give me the empty feeling that I have for that 200m Olympic gold right now,” he said.
Jefferson-Wooden, Lyles make history in 200m
Paul Swangard and Ato Boldon break down the women’s and men’s 200m events at the 2025 World Track and Field Championships, where Noah Lyles and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden both made history for Team USA in Tokyo, Japan.
Bednarek has now won four silver medals in the event — two at the Olympics and two at worlds.
Levell edged Tebogo for bronze by one hundredth.
The World Championships continue later Friday at 6:20 p.m. ET on Peacock with 20km race walks, heptathlon and decathlon events and qualifying in women’s shot put and men’s discus.
The next full finals session is Saturday at 6 a.m. ET on CNBC and Peacock including the heptathlon’s last event, the 800m (8:11 ET), the women’s 5000m (8:29) and the men’s 800m (9:22).
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone chased the the longest-standing world record in sprinting.
