Noah Lyles took one step closer to his dream of achieving an individual Olympic sprint double in Paris after securing his spot in the 200 metres final at the Stade de France.
The American claimed 100 metres gold by five one thousandths of a second on Sunday night, and needed to finish in the top two from semi-final heat two to automatically book his place in Thursday night’s showdown.
Lyles crossed his fingers with a tongue-out grin as the camera cut toward him on the big screen.
Like that 100m final, Lyles got out to the slowest start of the eight-man field, but made up for it when he crossed the line in 20.08 seconds for second spot behind Botswanan Letsile Tebogo in 19.96.
Lyles’ time was still good enough for third-fastest of the semi-finalists behind Tebogo, the only man to clock a sub-20 time in the semis.
Second quickest was Lyles’ American team-mate Kenny Bednarek, the 2022 world and Tokyo 2020 silver medallist, who made easy work of the first semi-final in exactly 20 seconds.
Dominican Alexander Ogando and a third American, Erriyon Knighton, rounded out the top five while Liberia’s Joseph Fahnbulleh and Zimbabwe duo Tapiwanashe Makarawu and Makanakaishe Charamba also qualified.
Earlier, Guernsey hurdler Alastair Chalmers’ evening came to an unfortunate end when he fell at the final bend of his 400 metres hurdles semi-final.
He said: “Honestly I’m actually quite fine, I’m happy to make the semi-final and had a good heat the other day.
“To be in front of this crowd and racing these kinds of athletes is a dream. I just lost a bit of concentration between six and seven. It’s a bit frustrating I guess, but I’m happy with how I set the race up, I attacked it and I’m honestly not that upset or disappointed.
Norway’s defending Olympic champion Karsten Warholm, who set a world and Olympic record 45.94 seconds at Tokyo 2020, was the fastest of the semi-finalists in 47.67.
Great Britain’s Tade Ojora lined up in heat two of the men’s 110 metres semi-finals but did not advance after finishing seventh.
He said: “It was a great experience. Obviously I hoped to do better and expected to do better, I wish I’d done better, I let myself down but that’s the emotions. I’m sure in a couple of days, maybe a couple of hours I’ll be able to look back on that Olympic experience. I’ve come here and I’ve accomplished a lot.”