Defending champion Noah Lyles has completed the World Championship double five days after winning gold in the 100m.
The US sprint star also triumphed over the 200 m in Budapest on Friday in 19.52 seconds. Defending women’s champion Shericka Jackson (Jamaica) prevailed with a championship record of 21.41 seconds, only seven hundredths were missing from the 35-year-old world record of Florence Griffith-Joyner (USA).
The 26-year-old Lyles secured his third world title in a row and became the first sprinter since Usain Bolt (2015 in Beijing) to win both gold medals over the two shortest sprint distances. Sha’Carri Richardson (USA) had attempted the same feat, but the 100m world champion had to settle for bronze (21.92). Silver went to her compatriot Gabrielle Thomas (21.81).
Lyles, who crowned himself sprint king over 100 m for the first time on Sunday, had already squinted at the 14-year-old world record of Jamaica’s sprint legend Bolt (19.19) before the race. In the end, however, the American was 33 hundredths short of the record from Berlin 2009.
Silver in the men’s race went to Erriyon Knighton (USA/19.75) ahead of Letsile Tebogo from Botswana (19.81). The German record holder Joshua Hartmann (Cologne) was surprisingly eliminated in the preliminary heat. Andrew Hudson, who, like Lyles, was involved in a golf cart crash on Thursday before the World Cup semifinals, finished eighth (20.40).
Hudson was subsequently set for the final after his actual exit in the semifinals. The 26-year-old got glass in his eye when two vehicles that were transporting athletes from the warm-up area to the stadium collided. The world association World Athletics then initiated an investigation and announced that the transport procedure would be reviewed.