Perhaps the greatest tribute you can pay to Noah Lyles is that he really is as good as he says he is. First comes the vision. Then comes the pledge, almost as if he is trying to speak the vision into reality. Finally the delivery, the nuts and screws of cashing the cheques his words have already written for him.
It was one hell of a fight, which is just as well because there is nothing Lyles likes better. In a sport of pure air and clean straight lines, perhaps the simplest sport of all, Lyles thrives on the thrust of conflict, the fast-twitch muscles of competition and confrontation, the salt of his haters' tears and the salt of his own.
Often it is said of athletes that the first yard is in their head. With Lyles, it is more accurate to say that the first yard is in his mouth. He has, for example, insisted all season on calling himself the fastest man in the world even though Thompson has run what remains the fastest time this year; who calls out pretty much the entire NFL and NBA for having the temerity to call themselves world champions.
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