BUDAPEST (AFP) – There was double world sprint joy for Noah Lyles in Budapest yesterday while the second fastest women’s 200-metre (m) run in history saw Shericka Jackson dash Sha’Carri Richardson’s hopes of also achieving the 100/200m sweep.
Lyles became the fifth man to do the double – and the first since Usain Bolt in 2015 – as he claimed his fourth individual world title.
“In my documentary I talked about wanting it to be done, being different from anybody else, and winning double golds was one of the things on my list,” said the 26-year-old American.
“I wanted to show I am different. Today I came out and showed it,” said Lyles, who is the fourth American to do the double.
In the women’s event, Jackson produced a run for the ages as the 29-year-old Jamaican rebounded from the disappointment of being beaten to silver by Richardson in the 100m to time 21.41 seconds (s), breaking her own championship record set last year. Her time was just seven hundredths of a second slower than the world record of 21.34s set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.
“I feel like I am a living testimony that you can create something if you really want it and never give up,” said Jackson, who only switched to 100/200m from 400m in 2021.
“Even if I was pretty close to the world record it was not the thing on my mind when I ran. As for the world record – I’m close, I’m close, I’m getting there.”
Lyles was not the only athlete to win a fourth individual title on the night, although Yulia Rojas left it to her last jump in the women’s triple jump.
The 27-year-old only scraped into the final eight by the skin of her teeth and then produced two no-jumps.
However, she dug deep with her last attempt for a gold medal-winning jump of 15.06m, snatching victory from Ukraine’s Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk who had led from the first round with a mark of 15.00m.
