Hughes Set to Silence ‘Loose Mouth’ Lyles Ahead of Olympics

US sprint star Noah Lyles is set for his final competitive track outing this Saturday at the London Diamond League, before the Paris Olympics.

Having clinched the 100m and 200m titles at last year’s world championships in Budapest, Lyles will run the shorter sprint in London, gearing up to establish himself as the true successor to Usain Bolt.

In this race, the American will face tough competition from Britain’s Anguilla-born Zharnel Hughes, who secured bronze behind Lyles in Hungary. He will also compete against world silver medalist Letsile Tebago from Botswana and South Africa’s Akani Simbine.

“I’m looking forward to London, I feel it’s going to be special,” said Hughes, who was disqualified from the 100m final at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Olympics, won by Italy’s Marcell Jacobs.

“The fact it’s the last Diamond League before the Olympic Games, it’s going to be stacked and I want to lay something down there.”

Hughes co-stars alongside Lyles in the Netflix docu-series “Sprint,” but admitted he hadn’t realized just how much his US rival talked about him.

“I didn’t really know he said that much about me until I saw the preview and I realized he said a lot,” said Hughes.

“I was like, ‘this guy can talk!’ I knew he talked, but I didn’t know he talked that much. Obviously, me being a competitor, it raised all the red in me. I was like, ‘this guy, man! Shut up.’

“My girlfriend said, ‘don’t try to let it get to your head. He’s saying these things, so you guys can be thrown off psychologically.’ So for me, I use that desire, that red in me, and I try to put it out on the track.

“I’m looking forward to actually sitting down and hearing all the things that he had to say. It’s just the perfect timing leading up to the Olympic Games. I will see him in London, and we’ll meet there – but I’ll talk with the spikes.

“He just has a loose mouth, but I guess that’s how he gets his confidence. At the end of the day, he’s performing as well, so I have to give him credit.”

Besides Hughes, British interest will come from the Carl Lewis-coached Louie Hinchliffe. Hinchliffe won the 100m at the highly competitive NCAA championships in a personal best of 9.95 seconds before clinching the British title too.

The meet in London, held at the stadium used for the 2012 Olympics and now home to Premier League club West Ham United, comes just six days before the Paris 2024 opening ceremony. There will be a galaxy of talent on show, not just in the men’s 100m.

Femke Bol will compete in the women’s 400m hurdles, fresh from smashing her own European record by half a second with a victory in 50.95 seconds in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.

She became just the second woman, after US Olympic champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, to break the 51-second barrier.

A loaded women’s 800m sees Olympic gold medal hope Keely Hodgkinson up against British teammates Laura Muir, Jemma Reekie, and Georgia Bell, as well as Uganda’s 2019 world champion Halimah Nakaayi.

Additionally, American Ryan Crouser will fine-tune his preparations for a bid for his third Olympic shot put gold. He will compete against teammate Joe Kovacs, New Zealand’s Tom Walsh, and Italy’s new European champion Leonardo Fabbri.

Source: Various