Noah Lyles starts Indoor season with 60m win at Florida Collegiate International

American sprinting sensation Noah Lyles stunned the world with an unexpected 2024 indoor season debut at the Florida Collegiate International 2024 in Gainesville. The event, which took place at the Alachua County Sports & Events Center at Celebration Pointe in Florida, saw Lyles winning the men’s 60m event, clocking a 6.63s.

He was scheduled to begin his 2024 indoor season at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, scheduled on February 4, 2024. Lyles had earlier posted about taking part in the Boston indoor meet on his X (formerly Twitter) handle, asking his fans to buy tickets for the event.

The collegiate meet witnessed Noah Lyles finishing ahead of Tokyo Olympian Eric Harrison (6.65) and Kendal Williams (6.68), former Pan American Games gold medalist. Despite being a collegiate team invitational competition, it included individual open athletes.

FloTrack, a sports media company, shared a video of the three-time world champion storming to victory on his 2024 indoor season debut, with the caption:

“The world champion has officially returned to the track for 2024 👀 Noah Lyles (@LylesNoah) makes his indoor season debut at the Florida Collegiate Invitational in Gainesville with a 6.63 win in the 60m.”

In 2023, Lyles achieved a historic feat at the World Athletics Championships as he became the first man since Usain Bolt in 2015 to accomplish a treble. He did so by winning a gold medal each in the men’s 100m (a personal best of 9.83), 200m (19.52), and 4x100m relay.

Lyles, having teamed up with Christian Coleman, Fred Kerley, and Brandon Carnes, clinched the sprint relay gold for the United States, clocking a winning performance of 37.38s. With this, the Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist (men’s 200m) extended his World Championships overall medal count to 7 medals, including 6 gold, and 1 silver.

Noah Lyles was named the World Athletics Men’s Athlete of the Year in the men’s track category

Noah Lyles after winning the Men's 100m Final at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 2023 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Noah Lyles was announced the Men’s Track Athlete of the Year in 2023 by World Athletics after a phenomenal outdoor season in 2023. For the first time in history, the global athletics governing body divided its awards into three categories and named six athletes (including male and female) as the winners of the World Athlete of the Year award.

In the women’s track, Faith Kipyegon won the award for smashing the world records in 1500m, the mile, and the 5000m. In the field events, Armand Duplantis and Yulimar Rojas were declared the winners. Additionally, Kelvin Kiptum and Tigist Assefa, marathoners from Kenya and Ethiopia, won in the ‘out of stadia’ category.