Favorites deliver in spectacular fashion
Lyles and Jackson set meet records while storming to wins in 200-meter races
EUGENE, Oregon – Noah Lyles of the U.S. and Shericka Jackson of Jamaica turned in iconic performances while posting runaway victories in the men’s and women’s 200-meter finals of the World Athletics Championships at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field on Thursday.
Lyles, 25, and Jackson, 28, were the pre-meet favorites in their respective 200-meter races and they validated those titles by turning in dominating performances.
Lyles set a meet record of 19.31 seconds while leading the U.S. to a 1-2-3 finish and winning the event by nearly half a second. His time was the fourth fastest in history, moved him to third on the all-time World performer list, and lowered the U.S. record of 19.32 that was a world record when Michael Johnson set it during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Jackson, who placed second in the women’s 100 on Sunday, set a meet record of 21.45 while running the second fastest women’s time in history and leading Jamaica to a 1-2 finish.
Lyles’ victory was particularly sweet for him as he successfully defended the World title he won in Doha, Qatar, in 2019, and it came a year after he finished a disappointing third in the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Andre De Grasse of Canada and Kenny Bednarek of the U.S. had finished first and second in the Olympics. But De Grasse had been struggling this season before being eliminated in a semifinal of the 100 on Saturday and withdrawing from a first-round heat of the 200 earlier in the week. Bednarek ran a season best of 19.77 to place second in the final on Thursday, but that left him a whopping .46 seconds back of the winner.
Erriyon Knighton, who recently graduated from high school, finished third in 19.80 after placing fourth in the Olympics. He was followed by Joseph Fahnbulleh of Liberia and the University of Florida, who ran 19.84, and Alexander Ogando of the Dominican Republic, who clocked 19.93.
It was the second time — the first was 1995 — that the U.S. had swept the medals in the men’s 200 in the World Championships. Combined with the 1-2-3 finish in the 100 on Saturday, this is the first time since the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis that the U.S. has swept the men’s 100 and 200 in a global title meet.
Lyles has never been known for having a great start or running the curve well, but when he got off to a superb start on Thursday and had the lead entering the straightaway, the only question was how large would his margin of victory be?
“I saw the time pop up and I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” he said during a trackside interview that was broadcast over the sound system at Hayward Field. “I said, Really?”
Lyles’ performance came in the final event of the day and about 20 minutes after Jackson had won the women’s 200-meter title.
It also came less than 10 minutes after Tommie Smith and John Carlos were introduced to the crowd following a video presentation on the scoreboard documenting their gold- and bronze-medal winning performances in the 200 in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City and the subsequent medal awards ceremony in which they gave black power salutes during the playing of the national anthem to protest racial injustice in the U.S.
They received death threats following their actions at the time, and Brent Musburger, then a reporter with The Chicago American, reflected negative reactions of the moment — on par with views of Colin Kaepernick today — when he wrote that “Smith and Carlos looked like a couple of black-skinned storm troopers.” But the pair received a long standing ovation Thursday, and both seemed touched by the gesture as Carlos blew kisses to the crowd.
The women’s 200 preceded the honoring of Smith and Carlos, and it was a Jamaican-dominated affair as 100 champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce placed second in 21.82.
Fraser-Pryce, who had won an unprecedented fifth World title in the 100 on Sunday, had the lead coming out of the turn, but Jackson caught her with 90 meters left in the race and powered away to victory.
Defending champion Dina Asher-Smith of Great Britain placed third in 22.02, followed by Aminatou Seyni of Niger, who ran 22.12, and Abby Steiner of the U.S., who finished fifth in 22.26. Elaine Thompson-Herah, the two-time defending Olympic champion in the 100 and 200, finished seventh in 22. 39.
Steiner, who had run a personal best of 21.77 to win the 200 in the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships on June 26, was in fourth place coming off the curve, but her typical homestretch charge never materialized.
“The fastest woman alive, the national and championship record, I cannot complain,” Jackson told World Athletics. “I was not thinking about my time or records. I know Shelly is probably one of the best curve runners in the world so I knew she was going to go hard. I knew if I wanted to get gold, I had to run the curve as hard as possible.”
While the 200-meter finals drew the biggest cheers from the crowd on Thursday, semifinals were conducted in the men’s 800 meters, and heats were run in the men’s 5,000 and women’s 800.
Olympic champion Emmanuel Korir of Kenya won the first semifinal of the men’s 800 in 1 minute 45.38 seconds, and Algerians Djamel Sedjati and Slimane Moula placed first in the second and third heats in times of 1:45.44 and 1:44.89, respectively.
Moad Zahafi of Morroco and Bejamin Robert of France failed to advance to the final after running under 1:44 this season.
In the men’s 5,000 meters, Ugandan Oscar Chelimo won the first qualifying heat in 13:24.24 and Kenyan Jacob Krop took the second in 13:13.30.
Joshua Cheptegui of Uganda, who won the 10,000 on Sunday, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, who finished second in the 1,500 on Tuesday, were amongst the other 13 runners who advanced to the final.
All of the most highly-regarded runners advanced to the semifinals of the women’s 800, as Olympic champion Athing Mu of the U.S. (2:01.31), silver medalist Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain (2:00.88), and bronze medalist Raevyn Rogers of the U.S. (2:01.36) won their respective heats.
World indoor champion Ajee Wilson of the U.S. advanced to the semifinals with a third-place finish in her heat, and Mary Moraa of Kenya moved on with a second-place finish in her heat.
Defending World champion Anderson Peters of Grenada and Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra of India were the top two qualifiers in the men’s javelin.
Peters had a throw of 89.91 meters (294 feet 8 inches) and Chopra was at 88.39 (290-0).
Olympic champion Pedro Pichardo of Portugal and Olympic bronze medalist Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso led qualifying in the men’s triple jump with marks of 17.16 (56-6¾) and 17.15 (56-3¼).
Christian Taylor of the U.S., the three-time defending World champion, failed to advance to the final with a best mark of 16.48 (54-1). But that was not a surprise as he is continuing to work his way back from a ruptured Achilles’ tendon injury he sustained last year.