American prospect will be on a British track for the first time in Birmingham on Saturday evening and contesting the 100 metres

Sprinting needs another hero and Noah Lyles of the US puts up his hand

The king is dead. Long live the king? With Usain Bolt retired, athletics needs a new sprint hero. The brilliant young American Noah Lyles reckons he has the talent and charisma to fill some of the 6ft 5in hole left by the Jamaican.

“I want to transcend the sport,” says Lyles, who runs in Britain for the first time at the Birmingham grand prix on Saturday. “Track and field in America isn’t that big until the Olympics comes around and I want to change that.”

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Lyles is certainly fast. Not only is he the quickest man over 100m and 200m this year but his personal bests – 9.88sec for 100m and 19.65 for 200m – are better than Bolt’s at the same stage (21 years and one month). However, he literally dreams of getting a lot quicker.

“In 2016 I had a dream where I raced and the clock flashed 9.41 and I ran up to my mom and said: ‘Mom, I just ran 9.41,’” he says, laughing. “And she was like: ‘That’s nice, Noah.’ And then she turned around and said: “What did you just say? That’s a world record.’ But I do really think I can run 9.41. I don’t know when it’s going to happen but I’m going to try my best to do it.”

Like Bolt, Lyles is a natural showman. When he raced in Doha in May he wore R2D2 socks and swung a pretend lightsaber to celebrate Star Wars day. A few weeks later in Eugene he put his hands in the air before the start and called for a “spirit bomb”, a move from the TV show Dragon Ball Z. And when he became the youngest man since 1984 to win the 100m at the US trials he wore Incredibles socks and celebrated with the Shoot dance, popularised by the video game Fortnite. For good measure Lyles is also a budding rapper and has a YouTube channel.

His priority for now, though, is to prove himself as the top sprinter in the world – and make up for lost time having missed last year’s world championships in London due to a torn hamstring, which meant he never got to face Bolt.

“Am I sad I didn’t get to race against him at least once? Yes. Maybe now I would have been able to challenge him at the end of his career but, if we’re talking about him in his heyday, I don’t think anyone could really challenge him besides Yohan Blake.”

In Birmingham Lyles will race the 100m and believes he could run a personal best of around 9.85sec. However he accepts it will be tough against a stacked field that includes 14 men who have gone under 10 seconds, including the world 60m record holder, Christian Coleman, as well as Zharnel Hughes and Reece Prescod, the European 100m gold and silver medallists.

“I’m really happy for Zharnel because I’ve been watching him for a few years,” Lyles says. “He’s been on that cusp of breaking 10 seconds for the 100m. This year he finally did it and he actually did it on me in Jamaica. I felt really happy for him. I hadn’t heard of Prescod before this year. He has shocked me a little. But it’s great that we have all these athletes facing-off in big races. The sport has a past history of not having the top-tier guys go off against each other, but that’s what people want to see.”

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Lyles’s best distance is clearly the 200m – only seven men in history have run faster than his PB of 19.65 – but he admits it is much tougher in the 100m. “I can’t say I am the dominant figure because I do get beat in the 100m but I am OK with that because it makes the races more exciting,” he says.

“If somebody dominates the whole time people might get a little bit turned off. But when they see competitive rivalry, people get more excited. I get really excited when people talk others up. I say: ‘OK, I’ve got some work to do. I’ve got to change some minds.’”

Lyles does not look like a sprinter. He is only 5ft 10in and sinewy rather than ripped but he has excellent genes, given his father, Kevin, was a 45.01sec 400m runner and his mother, Keisha, was an All‑American runner at college, and he has a ridiculously fast finish.

“I don’t have big bulging muscles,” he concedes. “And it’s harder for me to get those first few steps out than some of the other guys. But my ability to turn over is very fast – and I have a unique ability to have a lot of endurance and be able to hold my top-end for longer than most people can.”

That is something the large Birmingham crowd – and his rivals – are probably about to find out.

Noah Lyles will compete in the 100m at the Müller Grand Prix Birmingham on Saturday. Tickets are available at britishathletics.org.uk.