Noah Lyles scorches to comeback win in 200m, Julien Alfred conquers 100m in Monaco

MONACO – Noah Lyles fired a warning shot at contenders for the 200m at the world championships by scorching to victory in the Diamond League meet in Monaco on July 11, as Julien Alfred collected another win in the 100m.

The 27-year-old delivered a near-faultless run to clock 19.88 seconds to edge out Botswana’s Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo into second in 19.97sec.

Saint Lucia’s Alfred, 24, timed a very comfortable looking 10.79sec to win the women’s event-ending blue-riband race ahead of American Jacious Sears (11.02).

But Lyles was the star of the show at a packed Stade Louis II in perfect balmy conditions. Tebogo had even said that when the American’s face appears on meet posters, people want to come and see him perform.

And so it proved, Lyles coasting to a morale-boosting victory after coming back from a tendon injury.

“I pray for times like this to be out here and do what I love. I come out here and I give my best,” the Paris 2024 100m champion said.

“I put myself in the fire for that one coming back against Tebogo. I didn’t feel any pressure. I don’t see any reason to put pressure on myself, that’s what we love to do.”

The 10th competition on the 15-meet Diamond League circuit was loaded with a raft of top track and field stars, none less so in the electric men’s 800m.

There was a late change in the wavelight technology that informs racers of record pacing in the two-lap race, with an unexpected tilt at Kenyan David Rudisha’s world record from when he won gold at the 2012 London Olympics.

His compatriot and current Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi looked liked he might break the now mythical mark of 1min 40.91sec, but he just faded at the line to win in a meet record and world-leading time of 1:41.44.

American Josh Hoey was second in 1:42.01, with Algerian Djamel Sedjati rounding out the podium (1:42.20).

“I came to run a season’s best and a meet record,” Wanyonyi, 20, said. “I came prepared. I gave my best today so I am happy with the result.”

There was another world-leading meet record in the women’s 400m hurdles as world champion Femke Bol fired a warning shot at the imperious Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone with a victory in Monaco in 51.95sec.

The win took Bol’s incredible streak of consecutive victories in the Diamond League since 2021 to 26, including four final wins.

The Dutchwoman, 25, easily saw off competition from Dalilah Muhammad and fellow American Anna Cockrell, Olympic silver medallist in Paris, who finished second and third respectively.

“Running 51 is always very special, I don’t do that every day,” Bol said. “I am feeling good so far this season, I had a great start to it. I also did two 400m flats but I could see my shape getting better.”

Armand Duplantis again dominated the pole vault, the Swede breaking the meet record with a successful vault of 6.05m on just his third effort of the competition, with only Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis left to push him.

Once the two-time Olympic champion, 25, had cleared that height, he skipped 6.10m, forcing Karalis into a third failure and second place.

Pundits might have reckoned that there would be no world record attempt, Duplantis happy to call it a day ahead of a month off competition with an eye on peaking at the world championships in Tokyo in September.

But, ever the competitor, the bar was raised to 6.29m, 1cm above the mark he set in Stockholm in June. But it was not to be and three failures at the new height brought the Swede’s evening to an end.

In other events, Dominican Marileidy Paulino, the reigning world and Olympic champion, edged out American Aaliyah Butler by 0.03sec to win the 400m in 49.06.

The men and women’s short hurdles were won by American Trey Cunningham (13.09sec) and Jamaica’s Megan Tapper (12.34).

Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha won the men’s 5,000m in 12:49.46 and Morocco’s two-time Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali claimed victory in the 3,000m steeplechase in 8:03.18.
AFP, REUTERS