Noah Lyles Makes Bold Plans to Race More in 2027 and 2028 After Missing Ultimate Championships

Noah Lyles said on Tuesday that he intends to race more and cut back sharply on appearances in 2027 and 2028, reversing the approach he set out at the start of a season a hamstring injury has now ended.

He was speaking to reporters on a video call before the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, which opens in Budapest on Friday. World Athletics had given him automatic entry in both sprints, and the final entry lists went out without him. The hamstring he strained in the 200m final at the U.S. Track and Field Championships in late July never properly settled, and he called the season off on Sept. 4.

He is working the meet anyway. World Athletics named him an Ultimate Star on June 25, with the title of Ultimate MC and creative adviser, and his brief runs to the athlete introductions, the awards and Club Ultimate, a party the federation is staging for the athletes.

“I’m putting a lot more focus on more running and a lot less appearances,” he told reporters, in comments carried by Reuters. “I think we’ve proven this year that in the U.S. and even in the world, the world knows Noah Lyles.”

Back in January, at a press event in Boston before the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, he had described the year ahead in close to the opposite terms. He was going to “turn this year into a fan year,” he said, and “go do some off events,” and anyone was welcome to try him: “It doesn’t matter what sport you’re in, if you want to get your butt kicked by the world’s fastest man, I am happy to give it to you.” Budapest was an open question at that stage, and he said so in the same session, in remarks published by LetsRun: “Personally, they haven’t offered me anything that I see as valuable yet. We have been in constant talks. But we are going to have to come to a decision pretty soon.” Five months later he took the job.

In Ostrava on June 16 he ran 14.67 over 150m, a quarter of a second inside the time Kishane Thompson had set at the Miramar Invitational in April, with Sinesipho Dambile second in 14.78 and Gout Gout third in 14.96. World Athletics logs it as a world best. The straight-track times are faster: Usain Bolt ran 14.35 in a Manchester street race in 2009, and Lyles himself has 14.41 from Atlanta in 2024.

On July 24 at Icahn Stadium he won the U.S. 100m title in 9.79, matching the personal best he ran in the Paris Olympic final and setting a world lead nobody has beaten since. Two days later he pulled up in the 200m.

Tyson Gay has held the American 100m record since Sept. 20, 2009, when he ran 9.69 in Shanghai. It has stood 17 years, and Lyles has been exactly a tenth off it twice, in Paris in 2024 and in New York in July. The 200m record is his own, 19.31 from the world final in Eugene in 2022, and he has not been near it this season: 19.91 in Gainesville in April, 12th on World Athletics’ list for the year. He will be 30 when the Los Angeles Games open and 31 four days later. Only one man has won an Olympic 100m title at that age or older, Linford Christie, who was 32 in Barcelona in 1992.

He put no number on either target. “I don’t like to put limits on myself,” he said, in Reuters’ account of the call.

There is money in it too. Budapest pays $150,000 to the winner of each individual event, $75,000 for second and $40,000 for third, from a $10 million purse World Athletics calls the richest in the sport’s history.

Lyles, who has eight world titles, said the shape of the next two seasons gets settled at a team meeting in November, “where we’re just going to be discussing how we want to handle the next two years,” in remarks reported by The Sports Examiner. The meet opens on Friday evening.