The Inside Story of How Noah Lyles Pulled Off That Incredible 100-M Win
N oah Lyles and his long-time sports psychologist, Diana McNab, have been executing a pre-race routine all season long. Together, they come up with a sort of script, which lays out the psychological game plan on race day—from what Lyles should think when he wakes up, when he arrives at the track, when he’s warming up, when he’s in the blocks, and so on. This mental script is meant to produce strong physical results.
As per their practice, McNab got on the phone with Lyles the night before his 100-m race in Paris, and rang her Zen chimes three times while Lyles did breathing exercise before visualizing each element of the script.
The plan paid off on Sunday night, when Lyles won the most incredible, dramatic, and contested 100-m final in Olympic history. In a photo finish, Lyles edged out Kishane Thompson of Jamaica by five-thousandths of a second on Sunday night at Stade de France.
When Lyles woke up on Sunday, his first step was to “imagine you are 12-15-old Noah – laughing, fun, fearless,” according to the script that McNabb shared with TIME after the race. At the end of his warmup, he was to be as loose as a “Raggedy Ann-Doll.” When he entered the track, he needed to “look around and take in the thousands of spectators and energy in the stadium”—something he could not do in Tokyo, where there were no fans and Lyles went home with a disappointing bronze medal in the 200 m. In the last 20-meters, he was to be “flying down the track. No one can stop me. I am on fire. I have a God-given extra gear.”
