Lyles runs 100 metres personal best in final Olympic tune-up

LONDON :Noah Lyles warmed up for his assault on the Olympic 100 metres title in impressive style on Saturday when the American world champion ran a personal best of 9.81 seconds in the final Diamond League meeting before the Paris Games.

Lyles, probably the biggest name in the sport at the moment, delivered on his promises in the final race of the day in front of a sellout crowd of 60,000, easily the largest on the Diamond League circuit, clipping two hundredths off his best.

South African Akani Simbini took second in 9.86 and Botswana's Letsile Tebogo was third in 9.88 as the first five broke 10 seconds.

Lyles has developed into the biggest personality in athletics and, having taken the 100m world title in Budapest last year to add to three, and an Olympic bronze, over the 200m, he is becoming the man to beat in the blue riband event.

"That was fun," said Lyles, who was sluggish out of the blocks but supreme over the second half of the race. "I could have had a better start but the transitions were great and coming away with a PB this has been what I prayed for and what I wanted."

In the women's 200m American Gabby Thomas delivered a late surge to edge past Julien Alfred of St Lucia in a thrilling finish.

Thomas, a bronze medallist in Tokyo and silver winner at the last worlds, clocked 21.82 seconds, carrying Alfred to a personal best of 21.86.

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Keely Hodgkinson delivered an emphatic statement that she is the woman to beat in the 800m in Paris when she took more than half a second off her own national record with a dominant 1:54.61 victory in a British 1-2-3.

Still only 22, Tokyo silver medallist Hodgkinson is favourite for Olympic gold after Athing Mu failed to qualify following a fall in the U.S. trials.

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