Two-time reigning world champion Noah Lyles of the U.S. continued his undefeated 200m season, holding off reigning 400m world champion Michael Norman at the Diamond League meet in Lausanne.
Norman got the better start, giving Lyles quite a task to catch him in the second half of the race. But Lyles was strong off the turn as he’s been all season and made it look easy in 19.56, the fourth-fastest time in the world this year and seventh-fastest in history.
Norman notched a season’s best and second-place finish in just his third race at 200m this year, and congratulated his longtime friend Lyles at the finish line. Trinidad and Tobago’s Jereem Richards finished third. Erriyon Knighton, the third U.S. man in the field and usually a close domestic rival for Lyles, couldn’t keep pace with his countrymen in Lausanne, finishing sixth in 20.13.
The U.S. men also went 1-2 in shot put, but not in the expected order, as Joe Kovacs threw 22.65 to beat reigning world and Olympic champion Ryan Crouser, whose best mark of the day was 22.05.
While Kovacs’ win was considered an upset, Aleia Hobbs of the U.S. was the biggest surprise winner in Lausanne, taking her second career Diamond League win in the women’s 100m in a race that saw its fair share of drama before the start.
Two of the headliners in the women’s 100m didn’t race, as reigning world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica pulled out just before the race due to discomfort in her hamstring and reigning Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, also of Jamaica, was disqualified after a false start in the second attempt to start the race (the first attempt was stopped after a suspected false start by Olympic bronze medalist Shericka Jackson, whose reaction didn’t meet the threshold for disqualification).
Jackson finished second behind Hobbs, with two-time world 100m medalist Marie-Josee Ta Lou of Ivory Coast coming in third. Hobbs was one-hundredth of a second faster than Jackson (10.88), who was one-hundredth of a second faster than Ta Lou (10.89).
Fraser-Pryce posted on Instagram that she’s been struggling with the hamstring discomfort for “a couple days,” adding, “As a precaution my coach decided not to risk racing at this point. And I’ll have a few days to get some treatment before Brussels.” The Brussels meet is scheduled for September 2nd. Fraser-Pryce is in the midst of a dominant season; she’s run the seven fastest times in the world this year, including the sixth-fastest in history two weeks ago in Monaco.
Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell pulled an upset in the men’s 110m hurdles, running a personal best 12.99 to defeat two-time reigning world champion Grant Holloway and 2022 world silver medalist Trey Cunningham. Holloway started strong but faded in the last 40 meters to give way to Broadbell, whose time puts him in an elite group as just 22 other men in history have broken 13 seconds. He matches Holloway’s best mark this season, putting the two men tied for second in 2022 (Devon Allen, who’s not currently racing as he’s at the Philadelphia Eagles’ training camp, holds the world lead at 12.84).
Tokyo Olympic 110m hurdles champion Hansle Parchment of Jamaica finished fourth in Lausanne, just over a month after he had to withdraw from the world championships final due to an injury suffered in warmups just before that race.
The men’s 1500m saw a new world-leading time from Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who won the race in dominant fashion at 3:29.05, bettering the time ran by Great Britain’s Jake Wightman to upset Ingebrigtsen at the world championships last month.
Meet records were set in both women’s hurdles events. Newly-crowned world silver medalist Femke Bol of the Netherlands won the 400m hurdles in 52.95 to break her own meet record, on the heels of her dominant three-win performance at the European Championships. In Lausanne, she was up against 2019 world champion Dalilah Muhammad from the U.S., who got off to a good start but faded quickly in the second half of the race, ultimately finishing seventh.
In the women’s 100m hurdles, it was Tokyo Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico on top, breaking a 34-year-old meet record with a 12.34 mark. She finished just ahead of Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan, the world record holder and 2022 world champion, and in third was 21-year-old American Tia Jones with a personal best 12.47.
The women’s 3000m also saw a meet record, as well as a thrilling finish, as Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba ran down American Alicia Monson at the line. Monson ran a remarkable race, outpacing Olympic and world medalists like Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands and Margaret Chelimo of Kenya to better her personal best by more than 13 seconds and becoming the second-fastest American woman at the distance in 8:26.81.
Full meet results are here. An encore presentation of the Lausanne meet will air August 27 at 1pm ET on CNBC.
Next up in Diamond League is the September 2nd meet in Brussels, which will air across NBC, CNBC, and Peacock.
