US sprinter Noah Lyles opens up about his bronze medal and Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra Ultra Light

Time+Tide

The Tokyo Olympics didn’t turn out quite as planned for American sprinter Noah Lyles.  The only sprinter in history other than Usain Bolt to run the 200m in under 19.70 seconds four times in their career, the 23-year-old World Champion was pipped in the final by Canadian Andre De Grasse and his team-mate Kenny Bednarek to take the bronze medal.  When asked about the final, the young athlete was open about his mixed feelings, calling his bronze medal win “bittersweet” while acknowledging that his place in the top three was a great personal achievement. “I’m proud of myself and I learned a lot,” he admitted. “You can’t always go straight from A to B. There are twists and turns”.

Tell us about your Olympic experience

It was bittersweet. I came out here wanting gold, got bronze, but at the end of the day, I came away with something, so I’m pretty proud of myself for that.

You’ve spoken about the challenge of running in lane 3. Why is that?

You have to run around the bend, so much more, you know, a lot of people don’t understand that, when you go around a turn, you have to control and use a lot of energy to make sure that you don’t fly out to the edges of the lane. So you have to keep yourself in the middle or in the inside and that takes energy to do. So while people don’t have to do that so much on the outer lanes, the closer you are to lane one, the more energy it takes.

What was your overall impression of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games?

I felt that they’ve done the best that they could do with the situations that they’ve been given, it’s very hard to put on an Olympics in the middle of a pandemic, which is very impressive to do as a whole. And of course, no opinions of whether they should have or not, you know, it takes a lot of courage just to be able to say we’re going do them and we’re going to try our best.

What did you learn from your time here in Tokyo?

I’d say I had three learning experiences. The first one was patience. You know, just because something hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it won’t happen. The second one would probably be that every day is not a straight path, you know, you can you think it’s going to be like a straight line from A to B, but it’s really going to have a lot of C, D, E, F, and G’s, before you get to that B. So just knowing that the path isn’t going to be straight, but it’s still going to get to the destination that’s really important. And then also learning that, you know, maybe it wasn’t my time, of course, but I don’t believe that it’s not going to be my time.

Tell us about the Omega Ultra Light you are wearing

Yeah, I love the “Ultra Light”. It’s extremely light, For track and field athletes, all we want is something that you can’t really feel because we want to feel as light as possible. You know, when we run, we don’t want anything to be weighing us down and especially we don’t want to feel uneven. You know, if one side feels heavier than the other, that’s a huge distraction in our mind. So the lighter the watch, the better the race.

What’s your aim for Paris 2024?

I think you do know already. It’s to win. It’s always to win. It’s always to get PRs, run my fastest, you know, come out with a gold.

What’s next for you?

I’m going home, I’m going to relax. I’m going to celebrate, going to be with family, go on a vacation. Relax and then get ready for this long four years of World Championships and Olympics.