Photo by: Eric Taylor
EUGENE, Or. - Against the toughest competition in the world, recent T.C. Williams alum, Noah Lyles raced his best when it mattered most. Though he finished just shy of making the US Olympic team in fourth place, he did cross the line in a wind-legal 20.09 to break Roy Martin's 31 year old 200m national record.
This time of 20.09 is a Virginia State Record, National High School Record, American Junior Record, and ranks fourth in the entire country and 11th in the entire world this year!
To make the Olympic Trials final, he ran wind-aided 20.04 in prelims to lead all competitors and then followed that up with a 20.26 to take his semi-final to auto-advance to the final.
If you were Noah you could not ask for a better lane though in the final as he drew lane 4 with LaShawn Merritt directly in front of him in lane 5 to give him a great target.
Justin Gatlin, LaShawn Merritt, and Ameer Webb finished ahead of Lyles in the final. 20.00 was good enough for Webb to make the final spot.
