noah lyles

Ridgemont High, give way to a suburban school near Fort Worth. That’s where the fast times will be this year.

Cooper Lutkenhaus, an incoming junior at Northwest High School in Justin, Texas, was so impressive in setting an age-group world record at the U.S. Track & Field Championships on Sunday that a respected distance running coach and author declared it was “the most impressive athletic feat in history.”

In a social media post, Steve Magness, who wrote “The Science of Running,” said Lutkenhaus’ performance that included passing three of the nation’s fastest men in an electrifying stretch run “makes high school LeBron look like nobody.

“Cooper Lutkenhaus, take a bow.”

Current Lakers star LeBron James, of course, was a prodigy on the basketball court at St. Vincent–St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, and went straight to the NBA upon graduating in 2003.

Lutkenhaus, 16, won’t be in school for long, either. He will become the youngest American to compete in the World Athletics Championships when he travels to Tokyo on Sept. 13-21. This time he’ll have no age-group restriction, not after posting the fourth-best time in U.S. history (1:42.27) and nearly catching 800-meter champion Donavan Brazier (1:42.16).

In the waning seconds, Lutkenhaus turned on the jets, going from seventh to second place while passing reigning indoor 800 meter world champion Josh Hoey as well as Olympians Brandon Miller and Bryce Hoppel, all of whom were clustered with Brazier at the front.

Lutkenhaus’ time was the fastest ever for a runner under 18.

“I saw someone coming up and I was like, ‘Dang, this could be the high schooler,’ ” Brazier told reporters. “This kid’s phenomenal. I’m glad that I’m 28 and maybe have a few more years left in me, hopefully won’t have to deal with him in his prime because that dude is definitely special.”

Does wunderkind describe Lutkenhaus? He’s only been running track for three years, and he said his strategy of accelerating over the last quarter of the race was crafted in middle school.

“I’ve always kind of had a natural spot with 200 [meters] to go,” Lutkenhaus told reporters. “Ever since middle school that’s kind of been the spot I’ve really pushed from. Kind of just decided to go back to middle school tactics with 200 to go and really just give everything I had left.”

Less surprising was a late surge by Noah Lyles in the 200 meters that enabled him to pass Kenny Bednarek en route to a world-leading time of 19.63. Lyles might have challenged his personal best American record of 19.31, but as he passed Bednarek with five meters remaining he turned his head and stared down his competitor.

Bednarek retaliated, giving Lyles a shove before they shook hands. Afterward, Bednarek shrugged and chalked up the incident to “Noah is gonna be Noah.”

“If he wants to stare me down, that’s fine,” Bednarek said. “I’m very confident I can beat him. What he said doesn’t matter. It’s just what he did. It’s unsportsmanlike [crap] and I don’t deal with that.”

More drama occurred before championships when Sha’Carri Richardson was arrested and charged with fourth-degree domestic violence a week ago at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, according to a police report.

The reigning 100-meter world champion was charged with assaulting her boyfriend, sprinter Christian Coleman, as the couple were going through security. A police officer reviewed camera footage and observed Richardson grab Coleman’s backpack and yank it away, the report said.

Coleman tried to step around Richardson and she pushed him into a wall. Later she appeared to throw headphones at him.

In the report, however, the officer indicated that Colemen “did not want to participate any further in the investigation and declined to be a victim.”

Coleman defended Richardson when asked about the incident at the championships.

“She just has a lot of things going on, a lot of emotions and forces going on inside of her that not only I can’t understand, but nobody can,” he said. “Because she’s one of one.… I know that it’s been a tough journey for her this year. But she’s going to bounce back.

“Like I said, I see it every day. She’s the best female athlete in the world, and she’s going to be just fine. She’s going to be good. I’m going to be good, too.”

Once the racing took place, attention turned to Lutkenhaus. His time bettered the the U18 world record — set by Timothy Kitum of Kenya at the 2012 London Olympics — by 1.1 seconds.

“It is the most mind blowing HS performance in history,” Magness wrote on X. “Any high school phenom in history you can think of? This kid is better. I never thought we’d supplant Jim Ryun as the HS runner GOAT, but a sophomore in HS just did.”

EUGENE, Ore. — Track turned into a contact sport Sunday when Kenny Bednarek shoved Noah Lyles after Lyles beat him to the finish line in the 200-meter final at U.S. championships.

Lyles reeled in Bednarek in the homestretch to win in 19.63 seconds.

As he was crossing the finish line, Lyles turned to Bednarek in the lane next to him and started jawing at him. A few steps after they crossed, Bednarek reached out and gave Lyles a two-handed shove.

Lyles turned around, backpedaled and reached his arms out, then kept jawing at Bednarek. Their argument continued into the start of the NBC interview.

“I tell ya, if you’ve got a problem, I expect a call,” Bednarek said.

Lyles replied: “You know what, you’re right. You’re right. Let’s talk after this.”

Asked by the network’s Lewis Johnson what happened, Bednarek said: “I’m not going to say it out here, but we got something to do and talk about.”

The next chapter figures to play out Sept. 19 in Japan, where they’ll be among the favorites in the 200-meter final. Lyles is trying to match Usain Bolt with four straight world titles in his best race.

Lyles had a slow start to a season that has featured Bednarek opening as the dominant sprinter of 2025. Bednarek won the 100 meters Friday and also beat Lyles at the Olympics last year, finishing second in a race in which Lyles won bronze while suffering with COVID-19.

“It was a pretty difficult championship,” Lyles said. “I’ve been tired. It’s been rough. Coming out here when you’re not 100% and being able to say, ‘I still got to give my all no matter what happens.’ That’s tough. That’s tough.”

Noah Lyles, second left, wins the men’s 200-meter final at the U.S. championships on Sunday.

(Abbie Parr / Associated Press)

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden won the 200 in a personal-best time of 21.84 seconds, while Olympic champion Gabby Thomas had to wait a few anxious moments to see if she earned a spot on the world team. She did as her named popped up in third place.

It was a winning weekend for Jefferson-Wooden, who also captured the 100 on Friday. She will be joined in the 100 at worlds by Sha’Carri Richardson, who has an automatic spot as the defending champion. Richardson didn’t advance to the final in the 200.

The women’s 400 hurdles was wide open with Olympic champion and world-record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone electing to focus on the open 400 (she won the event Saturday ). Dalilah Muhammad, 35, took control and cruised to the win.

One of the afternoon’s most exciting finishes was in the men’s 800 meters, where 2019 world champion Donavan Brazier used a strong kick to hold off 16-year-old Cooper Lutkenhaus and Bryce Hoppel.

U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles thinks he’s the fastest man in the world.

Tyreek Hill, the Miami Dolphins receiver with the nickname “Cheetah,” thinks he could beat Lyles in a race.

The two men announced earlier this year that they would settle this most pressing of matters on the track, without offering many other details.

Now, however, it seems the world may never know which of them is truly its fastest runner.

Speaking to reporters Monday at the Stagwell Global Sport Beach event in Cannes, France, the 27-year-old Lyles revealed that his race against Hill, 31, actually had been slated to take place “this weekend” in Times Square but had been called off at some point because of unspecified “complications” and “personal reasons.”

“We were very deep into creating the event. In fact, it was supposed to happen this weekend,” Lyles said. “Unfortunately, there were some things — complications, personal reasons — [and] it just didn’t come to pass.

“But, I mean, we were all in. We were going to have a big event. We were going to shut down New York Times Square and everything. We were gonna have all the billboards for the event. It was going to be a lot of fun.”

Lyles was the world champion in the 200 meters in 2019, 2022 and 2023 and in the 100 in 2023. At last year’s Paris Olympics, he won gold in the 100 and bronze in the 200, later saying he had COVID-19 during those Games.

Following his 2023 world title, Lyles drew attention by telling reporters that teams that win the championship of a league based primarily or entirely in the United Statesare not technically world champions, despite what those athletes might claim.

“World champion of what?” Lyles asked. “The United States?”

During 2024 training camp, podcast host Kay Adams mentioned Lyles’ comments to Hill and asked the speedy receiver if he’d like to race Lyles.

“I would beat Noah Lyles,” replied Hill, a former high school track star who won the 100 and 200 at the 2012 Georgia 5A state meet and ran the 40-yard dash in 4.29 at his 2015 pro day. “I’m not going to beat him by a lot, but I would beat Noah Lyles.”

Lyles’ personal bests are 9.79 seconds in the 100 and 19.31 seconds in the 200. He told Bleacher Report in May that he thought his time in the 40 would be “somewhere between a 4.1 and a 4.2.”

In February, immediately after winning the 60 at the Indoor Grand Prix, Lyles held a scrap of paper in front of his face that read, “Tyreek Could Never.” Last week, after running a personal-best time of 10.15 in a 100-meter preliminary at a Last Chance Sprint Series event at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, Hill held up a sign that read “Noah Could Never.”

While the two men apparently had been slated to settle their feud on the track, now it looks like that’s not going to happen. Hill took to X on Tuesday to post a version of a popular meme featuring Homer Simpson fading into the bushes, with Lyles’ face super-imposed over that of the cartoon character.

“@LylesNoah after seeing me run the 100m last weekend,” Hill wrote.