After that loss, my drive was never the same"- Noah Lyles opens up on bouncing back to register unbeaten streak in the 200m

Noah Lyles recently reflected on his journey, sharing the unseen moments of his life where he dealt with his failures and showcased how he bounced back to remain unbeaten in the 200m till the Paris Olympics. He recently ended his 2024 season after competing in the French capital.

Weeks after wrapping up his 2024 Summer Games campaign with two medals, Lyles shared the final chapter of 'The Unseen Journey' series on October 19 on his YouTube channel, where he opened up about his life as an athlete. The 27-year-old spoke about the glamorous nights he experienced as a sprinter but also revealed the vision of his setbacks that no one has ever seen.

"Being an athlete is a kind of a coin, I would say, you know, one side heads - you see what TV shows you and you see the glitz, the Glamour, the medals, the celebration, the fast running, the fans yelling screaming for you but if you flip to the other side, it's tails. I'd say you would see the hard work, the pain, the failures, the sacrifices." (14:30 onwards..)

Lyles further showed clips of the award ceremony where he won the Athlete of the Year award. Right after this followed a clip where he was seen talking about coping with one of the losses of his career.

"After that loss, my drive was never the same. I became a different person, I brought in people that I needed to have closer and I excused people who did need to be so close."

One of the best examples of Noah Lyles bouncing back from his losses is his unbeaten 200m streak after the bronze medal win in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Be it the Diamond Leagues or the World Championships, Lyles was unbeaten in the discipline till the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The American won the 2022 Eugene and 2023 Budapest World Championship titles in the 200m. Along with this, he also nabbed the 200m title in the 2022 and 2023 Diamond Leagues.

However, Lyles couldn't maintain the streak during the 2024 Paris Olympics, as he secured a third-place finish behind Letsile Tebogo and Kenny Bedanrek.

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Noah Lyles opened up about his 200m loss at the Paris Olympics

Noah Lyles after the 200m race at the Paris Olympics- Source: Getty

Noah Lyles' 200m race did not pan out as expected at the 2024 Paris Olympics, as he ran while suffering from COVID-19 and couldn't catch the pace of the Botswanian athlete. Almost a month after the race, the American athlete opened up about his loss, saying that he was aware that his speed was compromised after the 200m semi-finals.

"I think I would have adjusted how I raced it now looking back. The strategy that we were going for was I was going to give all of my energy up front because I didn’t know if it would come at the end. I knew from running in the semifinal that my top-end speed was no longer with me. You could say that COVID had it under hostage, but I wasn’t producing the top-end speeds I was normally producing in the last few weeks, which had been very high."

He added:

"I was trying to rely on how fast I could get up to top speed and my ability to be able to hold top speed. It got me the bronze medal but it wasn’t enough for me to do better."

Noah Lyles clocked 19.70s, bagging the bronze medal, and shared the podium with Tebogo and Bednarek, who recorded 19.46s and 19.68s, claiming first and second place, respectively.