NOAH LYLES KEPT alive his bid to match Usain Bolt’s record of four consecutive world 200 metres titles as he scorched to the fastest time of the year of 19.51sec in the semi-finals on Thursday.
There was Tokyo heartbreak, however, for Australia’s 17-year-old sensation Gout Gout, who missed out on what would have been a first senior final.
There was no let-up from Lyles in his semi, as there often is with sprinters running heats in the knowledge they’ve already qualified for the next round.
The 28-year-old American properly fired through the line at the National Stadium to better his previous world lead of 19.63sec set at the US trials.
Lyles claimed bronze in Sunday’s 100m in Tokyo and immediately turned his attention to the 200m, which he called his “bread and butter”.
“I surprised myself,” the American said on Thursday. “I kind of backed up a little bit as we got to the last 20 metres. I am going to put on a whole race in the final.”
Lyles led home Anguilla-born Briton Zharnel Hughes, who clocked in 19.95sec.
With just the top two from the three semi-finals plus the next two fastest qualifying, a fast heat is always likely to include the latter.
So it proved as Zimbabwe’s Tapiwa Makarawu and South African Sinesipho Dambile both progressed from Lyles’ semi with 19.97sec and 19.98sec respectively.
Jamaican Bryan Levell looked comfortable in winning the second semi in 19.78sec ahead of Botswana’s Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo (19.95sec), who won in Paris last year when Lyles finished third.
“It’s a good feeling knowing that I made it to my first world championships final,” said the 21-year-old Levell.
“It seems I’ve gotten Noah’s attention. I know he’s a great competitor. So are the other Olympic champions, Letsile, Kenny… it’s going to be a good battle.”
Tebogo will be looking for some kind of redemption after a terrible false start in the 100m in the Japanese capital.
“I wanted to test the curve because yesterday we only ran the straight so today was just to test that curve and then tomorrow is just to combine the two and just let everything go out,” said Tebogo, 22.
“Definitely there has to be a big one inside me.”
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American Courtney Lindsey was third, just ahead of Gout. The teenager, who has been compared to Bolt because of his rapid progression at a young age, struggled at this rarefied level and missed out on a qualifying place by some distance after clocking 20.36sec.
American Kenny Bednarek won the opening semi in 19.88sec ahead of Dominican Republic’s Alexander Ogando.
Bednarek, who finished fourth in the men’s 100m, clocked 19.67sec in following Lyles home at the US trials and then shoved Lyles in the back for what he called unsportsmanlike behaviour when he stared him down over the finish line.
That should add some spice to Friday’s final.
South Africa’s 400m world record holder Wayde van Niekerk is out though, his fourth place in Lyles’s heat in 20.12sec proving insufficient for the 2016 Olympic 400m champion to advance.
Meanwhile, in the women’s 200m, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is one win away from becoming the first woman since Jamaican legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in 2013 to achieve the world sprint double after she eased into the final.
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden in action in her 200m semi. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
The 24-year-old American timed 22 seconds dead in her semi-final and 2019 world champion Dina Asher-Smith was a well beaten second but the Briton goes into Friday’s showdown.
“Everything is lining up the way it was supposed to,” said Jefferson-Wooden.
“It’s really important for me to win the 200-metre title.
“This is what I have been working on the whole year, and for all the work to be coming together now means a lot.
“I believe I can win gold. It would be so easy to give up or not to step out of my comfort zone, but I want to do things no one thought I could do.”
Jefferson-Wooden may be the favourite but two-time defending champion Shericka Jackson’s season’s best of 21.99sec in the first of the three semi-finals sent a clear message to the American.
So fast was Jackson, who in the two past world championships has come agonisingly close to achieving the double, that four of her rivals also posted season’s bests and runner-up Amy Hunt ran a personal best of 22.08sec.
It was little surprise that the two fastest qualifiers emerged from her semi — 2019 silver medallist Brittany Brown of the United States and Bahamas Anthonique Strachan.
American Anavia Battle and Ivorian veteran Marie-Josee Ta Lou Smith fill out the eight-runner field after they finished first and second in the third semi.
For Ta Lou Smith, who turns 37 in November, it will be an astonishing 13th individual sprint final at a global outdoor championship. She won two silvers in the 2017 world championships.
Elsewhere, US track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran the second-fastest time ever to win gold in the women’s 400 metres.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone celebrates with her gold medal. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
The 26-year-old American clocked 47.78sec to smash the previous championship record of 47.99sec set by Jarmila Kratochvilova of then-Czechoslovakia in 1983.
Defending champion and Olympic gold medallist Marileidy Paulino took silver in a Dominican Republic record of 47.98sec, with Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser claiming bronze in 48.19sec.
Having smashed the US record in the semi-final, McLaughlin-Levrone looked set to unleash something big in the final, perhaps even threatening Marita Koch’s 40-year-old world record of 47.60sec.
And so it proved, the two-time 400m hurdles Olympic champion and world record holder laying it all down on the track.
McLaughlin-Levrone was drawn in lane five, outside Cuba’s Roxana Gomez and inside Britain’s Amber Anning.
Temperatures at the National Stadium had dipped from recent sultry conditions as steady rain fell.
But the wet track made no difference as McLaughlin-Levrone motored out of her blocks.
By the halfway mark of the race in front of a raucous crowd, she had already gone past Anning.
A fine curve into the home straight saw the American in the lead.
Paulino briefly looked like she might threaten from the outside lane, but McLaughlin-Levrone, with her eyes glued on the timer, used every sinew in her body to propel herself past the line.
She crossed it in a championship record, but fell agonisingly short of the record set by Koch of then-East Germany in Canberra on 6 October, 1985.
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Lyles sails into 200m final, while McLaughlin-Levrone almost breaks world record to claim 400m gold
NOAH LYLES KEPT alive his bid to match Usain Bolt’s record of four consecutive world 200 metres titles as he scorched to the fastest time of the year of 19.51sec in the semi-finals on Thursday.
There was Tokyo heartbreak, however, for Australia’s 17-year-old sensation Gout Gout, who missed out on what would have been a first senior final.
There was no let-up from Lyles in his semi, as there often is with sprinters running heats in the knowledge they’ve already qualified for the next round.
The 28-year-old American properly fired through the line at the National Stadium to better his previous world lead of 19.63sec set at the US trials.
Lyles claimed bronze in Sunday’s 100m in Tokyo and immediately turned his attention to the 200m, which he called his “bread and butter”.
“I surprised myself,” the American said on Thursday. “I kind of backed up a little bit as we got to the last 20 metres. I am going to put on a whole race in the final.”
Lyles led home Anguilla-born Briton Zharnel Hughes, who clocked in 19.95sec.
With just the top two from the three semi-finals plus the next two fastest qualifying, a fast heat is always likely to include the latter.
So it proved as Zimbabwe’s Tapiwa Makarawu and South African Sinesipho Dambile both progressed from Lyles’ semi with 19.97sec and 19.98sec respectively.
Jamaican Bryan Levell looked comfortable in winning the second semi in 19.78sec ahead of Botswana’s Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo (19.95sec), who won in Paris last year when Lyles finished third.
“It’s a good feeling knowing that I made it to my first world championships final,” said the 21-year-old Levell.
“It seems I’ve gotten Noah’s attention. I know he’s a great competitor. So are the other Olympic champions, Letsile, Kenny… it’s going to be a good battle.”
Tebogo will be looking for some kind of redemption after a terrible false start in the 100m in the Japanese capital.
“I wanted to test the curve because yesterday we only ran the straight so today was just to test that curve and then tomorrow is just to combine the two and just let everything go out,” said Tebogo, 22.
“Definitely there has to be a big one inside me.”
American Courtney Lindsey was third, just ahead of Gout. The teenager, who has been compared to Bolt because of his rapid progression at a young age, struggled at this rarefied level and missed out on a qualifying place by some distance after clocking 20.36sec.
American Kenny Bednarek won the opening semi in 19.88sec ahead of Dominican Republic’s Alexander Ogando.
Bednarek, who finished fourth in the men’s 100m, clocked 19.67sec in following Lyles home at the US trials and then shoved Lyles in the back for what he called unsportsmanlike behaviour when he stared him down over the finish line.
That should add some spice to Friday’s final.
South Africa’s 400m world record holder Wayde van Niekerk is out though, his fourth place in Lyles’s heat in 20.12sec proving insufficient for the 2016 Olympic 400m champion to advance.
Meanwhile, in the women’s 200m, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is one win away from becoming the first woman since Jamaican legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in 2013 to achieve the world sprint double after she eased into the final.
The 24-year-old American timed 22 seconds dead in her semi-final and 2019 world champion Dina Asher-Smith was a well beaten second but the Briton goes into Friday’s showdown.
“Everything is lining up the way it was supposed to,” said Jefferson-Wooden.
“It’s really important for me to win the 200-metre title.
“This is what I have been working on the whole year, and for all the work to be coming together now means a lot.
“I believe I can win gold. It would be so easy to give up or not to step out of my comfort zone, but I want to do things no one thought I could do.”
Jefferson-Wooden may be the favourite but two-time defending champion Shericka Jackson’s season’s best of 21.99sec in the first of the three semi-finals sent a clear message to the American.
So fast was Jackson, who in the two past world championships has come agonisingly close to achieving the double, that four of her rivals also posted season’s bests and runner-up Amy Hunt ran a personal best of 22.08sec.
It was little surprise that the two fastest qualifiers emerged from her semi — 2019 silver medallist Brittany Brown of the United States and Bahamas Anthonique Strachan.
American Anavia Battle and Ivorian veteran Marie-Josee Ta Lou Smith fill out the eight-runner field after they finished first and second in the third semi.
For Ta Lou Smith, who turns 37 in November, it will be an astonishing 13th individual sprint final at a global outdoor championship. She won two silvers in the 2017 world championships.
Elsewhere, US track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran the second-fastest time ever to win gold in the women’s 400 metres.
The 26-year-old American clocked 47.78sec to smash the previous championship record of 47.99sec set by Jarmila Kratochvilova of then-Czechoslovakia in 1983.
Defending champion and Olympic gold medallist Marileidy Paulino took silver in a Dominican Republic record of 47.98sec, with Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser claiming bronze in 48.19sec.
Having smashed the US record in the semi-final, McLaughlin-Levrone looked set to unleash something big in the final, perhaps even threatening Marita Koch’s 40-year-old world record of 47.60sec.
And so it proved, the two-time 400m hurdles Olympic champion and world record holder laying it all down on the track.
McLaughlin-Levrone was drawn in lane five, outside Cuba’s Roxana Gomez and inside Britain’s Amber Anning.
Temperatures at the National Stadium had dipped from recent sultry conditions as steady rain fell.
But the wet track made no difference as McLaughlin-Levrone motored out of her blocks.
By the halfway mark of the race in front of a raucous crowd, she had already gone past Anning.
A fine curve into the home straight saw the American in the lead.
Paulino briefly looked like she might threaten from the outside lane, but McLaughlin-Levrone, with her eyes glued on the timer, used every sinew in her body to propel herself past the line.
She crossed it in a championship record, but fell agonisingly short of the record set by Koch of then-East Germany in Canberra on 6 October, 1985.
– © AFP 2025
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