Noah Lyles' audacious boast of breaking Bolt's 200m world record not so far fetched

This is a column by Morgan Campbell, who writes opinion for CBC Sports.  For more information about  CBC's Opinion section , please see the  FAQ .

Fourteen years ago this month I sat in the upper deck at Olympiastadion in Berlin, savouring a rare chance to watch live sports as a fan, and not a journalist, and watching the undisputed greatest of all time show us why he deserved the G.O.A.T label.

The athlete, of course, was Usain Bolt, charging from the blocks in the 200-metre final at the world championships, with seven other world-class sprinters straining to keep pace. Two men — Shawn Crawford of the United States, and Alonzo Edward of Panama — fared better than the other contenders. Eighty metres into the race, those two remained within Bolt's postal code.

But by the halfway point, Crawford, who faded to fourth place, and Edward, the eventual silver medallist, had fallen away like spent booster rockets. The final straight away, and all the crowd's attention belonged to Bolt, who finished in 19.19 seconds, breaking his own world record by more than a 10th of a second.

That night, I thought Bolt's mark, which came four days after he ran 9.58 to set a 100m world record, might stand forever.

WATCH | Usain Bolt break his own 200m world record:

Now I think I might have been wrong. Noah Lyles definitely thinks I miscalculated.

The 26-year-old American sprint star, already a two-time world champion over 200 metres, laid out an audacious set of goals in a recent Instagram post:

I'm not sure if Lyles has ever read The Secret, the self-help book that urges readers to speak goals into reality, but this post is some high-level manifesting.

It also demonstrates a confidence that borders on delusion — which is