Athletics, Olympics 2024: Track and field stars set to begin campaign for gold in Paris
From Noah Lyles to Femke Bol, the athletics events will kickstart on Thursday, promising new stars and renewed legacies for others.
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Brash, brazen, brilliant. American sprint duo Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson will look to live up to their billing as Olympic 100m favourites when the track and field programme at the 2024 Paris Olympics starts on Friday.
The reigning world champions are the stars of a recently-released Netflix docuseries entitled “Sprint”, giving an up-close and personal view into their lives on and off the track.
At the Stade de France – with those cameras still turning for season two – the debate will be whether Lyles, who won three golds at last year’s Budapest world championships, can beat defending champion Marcell Jacobs of Italy and go on to be crowned as the rightful successor to sprint king Usain Bolt.
The other hot topic is whether Richardson can hold off Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the ageing five-time world 100m champion seeking her third Olympic gold in the discipline.
For both Americans, it is a question of redemption.
Lyles maintains that the 200m bronze he won at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Olympics “still burns a hole” in his chest.
Richardson didn’t even make the plane for Japan after being banned for taking marijuana.
“I know exactly where I am ahead of Paris,” said Lyles, who arrived in Paris after setting a personal best of 9.81sec at the London Diamond...
