Noah Lyles on Usain Bolt's 200-meter record: 'I know that I’m going to break it'

Noah Lyles is talking openly about it these days, almost as more of a prophecy than a personal goal.

In his mind, it's no longer a question of whether he will surpass Usain Bolt's world record in the 200-meter dash, which has stood since Lyles was 12 years old. It's just a matter of when.

"I know that I’m going to break it," he told USA TODAY Sports in an interview earlier this summer.

His next opportunity will come in Budapest at the 2023 track and field world championships, which start Saturday. Lyles, 26, will attempt to win his first world medal in the 100-meter dash over the weekend before moving on to his signature event, the 200, where he is favored to win his third consecutive title.

In his winning performance last year, he broke the American record of 19.32 seconds, set by Michael Johnson at the 1996 Olympics, in dramatic fashion, by one-hundredth of a second. This year, he's got his eye on Bolt's record of 19.19. And he is making no effort to hide that ambition, laying out his goals clearly and publicly − even though that means giving the world a chance to easily determine his success.

"The second most-popular, favorite hobby of humans − after watching somebody achieve greatness − is watching them fail," Lyles told USA TODAY Sports ahead of the NYC Grand Prix in late June. "People love to watch people fail. They just do. I don’t know why. It’s just if somebody says they want to do something great, someone’s right there next to say they can’t do it.

"I can give zero cares about what other people think. Because they don’t know me, they don’t know my story, they don’t know what I do, they don’t know how hard I work, how talented I am. But I know."

Lyles has long been one of the brightest stars in American track and field, drawing buzz for his swagger, willingness to talk about mental health and off-track interests that range from music to fashion.

Most recently, he's led the charge to turn pre-meet arrivals into mini-fashion shows and opened his life up to several behind-the-scenes projects, in an attempt to grow interest in the sport. In addition to his behind-the-scenes videos on YouTube, Lyles is profiled in a two-part docuseries on NBC streaming service Peacock, which debuts Friday.

On the track, Lyles has yet to lose a 200-meter race in the two years since he finished a disappointing third at the 2021 Olympics. In fact, he has largely been competing against the clock. Of the 10 fastest 200-meter times in the world since Tokyo, he has run eight of them.

This year, Lyles has tried to gain a foothold in the 100 while cementing himself as the man to beat in the 200 − laying the groundwork for a potential rivalry with fellow American Fred Kerley, the soft-spoken 100-meter world champ who is now dabbling in the 200.

When asked if he has or needs a rival, such as Kerley, Lyles demurred.

"I’m going to motivate myself regardless. I’m going to win regardless," he said. "I didn’t need a rival at worlds to run 19.3, because there was nobody close to me when that happened."

Rivalries, Lyles said, are beneficial only because they're easier to grasp. "It’s harder to comprehend the difference between 19.3 and 19.19," he said. That difference − between Lyles' personal best and Bolt's world record − might seem miniscule, but in the track world, it is a gulf. There's a reason why, in the 14 years since Bolt set the record in 2009, only one man − fellow Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake − has come within one-tenth of a second of it.

To close that gap, Lyles said he needs to do two things: Get off to a faster start in the first 100 meters, and hold his top-end speed longer. Both have been emphasized in his training by coach Lance Brauman. Lyles said there's a reason he set his personal best in the 60-meter dash during the indoor track season this year.

Lyles wrote on Instagram last week that his final 200-meter workout before traveling to Budapest was his best yet. In a separate post, he wrote "I will run" followed by two times that would shatter world records: 9.65 in the 100 and 19.10 in the 200.

Lyles stressed in June that he would rather set a lofty goal and fall short a few times than strive for a more-attainable goal, and easily clear it. ("That's boring," he lamented.)

"And it’s OK to have markers as you’re going along," he continued. "The American record is a marker. It’s just a marker for my progression of how we’re going along. It’s a great marker to have, and everybody thinks it’s my magnum opus − but it’s not even close to what I plan to finish my career with."

Contact Tom Schad at [email protected] or on social media @Tom_Schad.