Noah Lyles won a 60m showdown with Christian Coleman by one hundredth of a second at the USA Track and Field Indoor Championships in their latest rivalry chapter.
Noah Lyles won a 60m showdown with Christian Coleman by one hundredth of a second at the USA Track and Field Indoor Championships in their latest rivalry chapter.
Coleman, the 60m world record holder, got his customary exemplary start. But Lyles, the world 100m and 200m champion, reeled him in and overtook Coleman at the finish line in Albuquerque.
Lyles clocked 6.43 seconds, a personal best by a hundredth, for his first win in four career 60m finals against Coleman.
“If I hadn’t faced Christian so many times, I couldn’t have boosted my confidence enough to say, ‘I’m ready to come out here and take on everybody,’” Lyles, standing next to Coleman, told Lewis Johnson on NBC Sports. “So I thank this man truly because he is who he is.”
Lyles began 2024 with a personal best of 6.51 in the 60m, which is a weaker distance for him than the 100m and 200m.
Lyles said that shaving eight hundredths off that PB this indoor season can translate this summer to lowering his 200m personal best — an American record 19.31 seconds — to 19.10, which would break Usain Bolt’s world record of 19.19.
“Eight years I’ve been trying to work on my start, my acceleration, my first 60,” he said on USATF’s Cool Down show. “If they can’t beat me here (in the 60m), you can’t beat me anywhere.”
Lyles and Coleman both qualified for the world indoor championships in two weeks in Glasgow, Scotland. Coleman won the 2018 World Indoor 60m title. Lyles goes to his first indoor worlds.
This summer, Lyles and Coleman each hope to become the first American man to win an Olympic 100m title since 2004. First, they must make the U.S. team by placing in the top three at June’s trials.
Coleman won the 2019 World 100m title and was the world’s fastest man in the Tokyo Olympic cycle, but missed those Games while suspended for missing drug tests. He has never failed a test.
Last August, Lyles became the first man to sweep the 100m and 200m at a world championships since Usain Bolt in 2015, while Coleman placed fifth in the 100m.
Then in September, Coleman won two races in 9.83 seconds, the same time that Lyles ran to win the world title. Coleman, Lyles and Brit Zharnel Hughes finished 2023 tied for the best 100m time for the year.
Other notable winners on the final day of USATF Indoors on Saturday: Olympic gold medalists Ryan Crouser (shot put) and Katie Moon (pole vault), American mile record holder Nikki Hiltz (1500m), Tokyo Olympic Trials winner Cole Hocker (1500m) and American record holder Aleia Hobbs (60m).
