Olympic gold medallist Noah Lyles: ‘I want that rock star effect’

The American track and field athlete on adorning his cornrows, painting his nails and wearing an Omega watch during his 100m final

It’s 4 August, the men’s 100m at the 2024 Olympics on a sultry Paris evening, and 80,000 pairs of eyes in the at-capacity Stade de France – not to mention some 8.1 million in the UK alone – are on Noah Lyles. The 27-year-old American track-and-field star is flanked by competitors on the starting blocks, but it’s Lyles who is the swaggering frontman of this athletic supergroup. He is, after all, blessed with the physical prowess and presence of Muhammad Ali, combined with the showmanship of Mick Jagger.
What’s more, his cornrows are studded with pearls, and his carved pectorals dusted in diamonds,thanks to his chain-link necklace. Lyles plays the audience like a pro, emitting a ferocious, leonine roar to the stands as the cheers reach fever pitch. His competitors can only politely nod and wave as he holds the hordes rapt. The starting gun sounds, the electricity reaches maximum voltage and – to screams that can surely be heard back in the 1st arrondissement – Lyles wins the historic race by five-thousandths of a second. Of course he does.
NOAH LYLES wins GOLD in the 100m final! 🥇⚡Could it have been any closer?! 🤯 #BBCOlympics #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/TaIgfk23rm
‘It was everything I could have ever dreamt of, like a culmination of everything I’d worked for all coming down to that moment,’ says Lyles, speaking cheerfully from Virginia, where he has relocated from his hometown of Gainesville, Florida. The fastest man on planet Earth greets me with a warm ‘Blessed and highly favoured’ when asked how he is, the influence of his devout Christian upbringing, and it’s clear that even with the benefit of three months’ hindsight, the events of that momentous evening are still vivid. ‘Honestly, it’s the hardest battle you ever had to face, and then you prove that no matter what the circumstances are, you can come out victorious.’
It helps that Lyles has a particular stylistic armour with which to ready himself for the fray; for he – perhaps more than any other athlete today – is a fashion enthusiast. ‘My style is rock star track star,’ he says proudly. ‘I like to be different, I like to be pop, I like some aspect of the outfit to be like, “Wow, OK, that guy’s blinding me a little. ”I want that rock-star effect.’ He achieves it, and then some; Lyles’s aesthetic choices have made him one of the most distinctive sportsmen of recent years, thanks to the pearls he weaves through his hair, and the defiant nail varnish – a white background with the letters I, C, O and N in blue on four fingers, for example.
‘I like things a little edgy, let’s get a little experimental. I see style as an extension of myself,’ he says. For the 100m final, he also wore an Omega Speedmaster Apollo 8 Dark Side of the Moon, a homage to the 1968 mission, feather light thanks to the perforated leather strap, so it wouldn’t slow him down, even by a thousandth of a second. He also has a Seamaster Ultra Light, of which he says, ‘It’s really light so I can’t feel it whatsoever, I truly forget it’s on my wrist.’
The relationship came about after Omega – official timekeeper of the Olympics in 2024, as it has been for every Games since 1932 – worked with American track-and-field champion Tyson Gay. ‘They noticed me when I was rising through the ranks, and they saw something in me,’ says Lyles. No false modesty required. In typically alpha style – it’s a theme with the ferociously confident Lyles – he says, ‘I wanted to make sure that I was a dominant figure, and a dominant figure needs dominant brands to go with him.’ The peacocking persona is an asset athletically, too: ‘Yes, it helps me walk out there,’ he says. ‘You need to remember that this is all fun.It’s supposed to be fun. It’s what you dreamt of, and you need to have fun with it; I walk out there, I know I’ve got the right watch, the right rings, the right hairstyle. You can tell yourself, “This is going to be big, but it’s also going to be fun, because I’m going to look my best and feel my best.”’
Wearing a Team USA one-piece designed by Ralph Lauren, and his favourite Adidas Adizero Y-3 trainers on the track, Lyles adds his own distinctive accents with that fantastical trinketry. He created the chain necklace with a local Floridian jeweller, and the pearl-bedecked hair ‘was inspired by A$AP Rocky’, says Lyles, referring to the US rapper (and Mr Rihanna), who’s known for his exuberant style. ‘So I asked my hairdresser to work on something for the Olympics that involved pearls.’ Lyles obviously relishes the subversive message of the athletic alpha male wearing jewellery synonymous with grandma’s Sunday best: ‘Style is about taking something and adapting it your way. It’s the same reason that I started painting my nails; I have to find ways to embody how I feel in the moment,’ he says. ‘I can’t look like everybody else, I need to look different.’
Fashion was never particularly on his radar growing up. There, ‘life was about surviving school and getting outside to run’ – but the black male musicians of the mid-noughties ignited Lyles’s curiosity about clothes as a means of self-expression. ‘I liked the way A$AP, Travis [Scott], Pharrell [Williams] and Tyler, the Creator were dressing, and wanted to get a little edgy, a little exotic, a little brighter and more colourful.’ He’s been known to don women’s suits from Stella McCartney, and daring outfits from cult NY brand Who Decides War, including one of its neon green sweaters with strategic cut-outs the better to showcase his rippling abs.
Once the image is finely honed, in the final hours and minutes before he steps into the stadium, it’s the energy of the crowd that gives Lyles the necessary turbo ‘You need to have fun with it. I walk out there, I know I’ve got the right watch, the right rings, the right hairstyle’ charge. ‘They have us all underneath the stadium, and that’s where we’re most exciting and energetic,’ he says of the moments before the big race. ‘There’s this bubbling momentum that builds, a pressure cooker ready to explode. You’re smiling from ear to ear. And I just know that I’m going to come out as the victor. I’m thinking, “How can I go out there and let them know that this is mine and nobody else’s?”’ Lyles has certain rituals before a race – a prayer routine in the morning, trainers tied a certain way, particular playlists – but he insists, ‘I tell myself that nothing has to be forced, nothing has to be perfect.’
And then he steps out. What is he thinking in that moment? There’s a long pause. ‘It’s no longer “thinking”, in a way. The rest of the noise goes away,’ he says. ‘You get this [tunnel] vision that means you’re not aware of what your opponents are doing. Nothing is going to be gained by knowing what anyone else is doing. You have to know yourself and that you’re going to do what you set out to do. Everything is within yourself. It’s like, “I need to move faster, this is it, we’re ready to go faster now.” Faster, faster, faster than yourself, than what you thought you were capable of. I will make this happen.’ And boy, does he make it happen.
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