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Athletics: Noah Lyles runs 15 meters too little with an alleged world record

Athletics, like so many sports, is looking for a way back into competition mode in times of the corona pandemic. A first try is the Inspiration Games, a format with remote duels in six different cities. Top athletes compete against each other, although they neither see each other nor feel the competition. The event is organized by the Diamond League meeting in Zurich.

Sprinter Noah Lyles, who won the World Cup titles over 200 meters and with the 4 by 100 meter relay in Doha last year, competed over the 200 meters against Christophe Lemaitre (France) and the Dutchman Churandy Martina. The American Lyles ran in Bradenton in Florida, Lemaitre in Zurich and Martina in his home in Papendal. The Jamaican Usain Bolt holds the world record over this distance (19.19 seconds).

When the remote duel ended, Lyles thought he was the new world record holder: 18.90 seconds were displayed, a fabulous time. Until then, Lyles’ personal best was 19.50 seconds. After checking the organizers in Florida, it turned out that Lyles had only run 185 meters because he was assigned the wrong start line. “You can’t play with my feelings like that. You gave me the wrong way,” Lyles wrote on Twitter a little later.

The rarely run 150 meters was won by the twelve-time world champion and six-time Olympic champion Allyson Felix from the USA, who ran 16.81 seconds in Walnut, California. In Bradenton, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, the 400m Olympic champion from the Bahamas, took 17.15 seconds. The Swiss Mujinga Kambundji ran 17.28 seconds in Zurich. “Pretty strange,” Felix said of her solo sprint. “But I love this sport and we want to support it.”

Editor’s note: In an earlier version it was said that Lyles was also world champion over 100 meters. That is not correct, we have corrected the mistake.

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