American sprinter Lyles hugely important to athletics, says Coe

The men’s 100 metres at the Paris Olympics on Sunday was as close to riveting perfection as you can get, said World Athletics president Sebastian Coe, and further entrenched American Noah Lyles as a consummate front man for the sport.

The exuberant American captured gold by five hundredths of a second in the most competitive men’s 100m final in Olympic history, with just 0.12 seconds separating the eight sprinters in a blanket finish.

“Well, if it’s not perfect, it’s about as close to perfect as you’ll get,” Coe said on Monday.

Lyles, who raced in braids and white beads, his nails painted in stars, put on a show, ripping his race bib from his chest and holding it aloft when he was announced the victor.

“(Lyles) is hugely important,” said Coe. “Look, I have to be relatively agnostic, but if I’m wearing a promoter’s hat, then him winning last night was important because he’s now creating a narrative that is heading us back into Usain Bolt territory.

“It’s a recognizable face, a face that have now got young people talking about. And I know that not just from being in the stadium here, but from friends of mine who’ve got young kids. They’re now talking about Noah Lyles in the same breath as some of the highest-profile sports men and women in the world.”

Coe, a two-time Olympic champion in the 1,500 metres, laughed when told that Lyles wants his own sneaker — common among professional basketball players, not sprinters — saying: “Ain’t no money in spikes. Even Michael Johnson didn’t have a sneaker.”

“He is recognising that he is beginning to transcend the sport, which is really what we want them all to do,” Coe said.

Particularly impressive in Lyles’ performance was that the 27-year-old did not look best in the semi-final less than two hours earlier.

“Like all great individuals in sport and great teams, they tend when it really matters to find a way of winning, and that’s what he did last night. He was never ahead in that race until the last frame of that photo,” Coe said.

“What he probably mastered better than anybody else, was what was in his head for an hour and 40-something minutes between the semi and the final.”

Had Sunday’s sprint final been a swimming race, Lyles and silver medallist Kishane Thompson would have shared gold, since swimming times only go to the hundredth of a second.

“If you have the technology, you have to use it,” Coe said. “Metrology is a very clear and definite science, and you need to make sure that if you have that technology, you use it.

“You speak to my kids or younger, they’re not fazed by the fact that somebody got across the line in five thousands of a second, they think it’s rather cool actually.”

Athletics has drawn huge crowds to the Stade de France for both the evening and traditionally less-popular morning sessions.

“The great thing about athletics, and it’s one of the assets we mustn’t ever overlook, is that our fans are not tribal,” Coe said. “Every home fan wants their home team to do as well as they possibly can. But it’s not a deal-breaker.”