Challenges do not scare Noah Lyles. When he entered the 200m semifinals of the Tokyo World Championships, after posting a time of 19.99s in Heat 4 for the win, the only sub-20 of that race, he was allotted lane 7. The problem? Lane 7 challenges runners with a blind stagger start, an awkward in-between curve, and psychological pressure from being outside the favored middle lanes. There was a chance of him being slow after getting a bad lane again in the finals. But man oh man, this is Noah Lyles we are talking about, the defending world champion, and today he performed like one.

The Olympic gold medalist took the turn at the curve, and he just flew. He took the lead on the curve, and then he was just unstoppable. Sure, the rest of the field tried to catch up to him, but that kind of gap do

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