Noah Lyles ran 14.67 seconds for 150 metres on Tuesday at the Golden Spike meet, the fastest time ever recorded over the distance.
The 28-year-old American beat a strong field that included Australian teenager Gout Gout, a runner widely tipped as the sport’s next breakout star. Lyles got out hard from the staggered start and held his form through the curve, then opened up over the final stretch.
The 150m is rarely raced and World Athletics does not ratify world records at the distance, so Lyles’s time will go down as a world best rather than a record. Even so, it shaves a chunk off the previous mark of 14.92, set by Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson on April 4 at the Miramar Invitational in Florida.
“It was about time,” Lyles said after the race.
He added that the staggered start still takes some getting used to, even for sprinters who train regularly at the distance.
“This feeling, it’s nothing new. It’s very hard to get used to running from a staggered 150 start. We do it in practice, but that’s without blocks. But all in all, I think that it was really good.”
A deep field, with two athletes under the old mark
Lyles was not the only runner to beat Thompson’s old time. Sinesipho Dambile of South Africa finished second in 14.78, also under the previous best. Gout, racing the 150m as a way to test himself against the reigning Olympic 100m champion, ran 14.96 for third.
The 18-year-old has trained with Lyles in the past and had pointed to this race as a head-to-head opportunity. In April, Gout won the Australian open 200m title in 19.67 seconds. That time set an under-20 world record and was faster than Usain Bolt had run at the same age.
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