When some of the fastest sprinters are told to notice, history is in the making. As the 2025 World Championships inch closer, one teenage sprinter is turning heads, dropping jaws, and clocking times that have top-tier athletes having to check their rearview mirrors. And after his latest performance, a respected track & field coach had just one message for Noah Lyles and the rest of the sprinting elite: ignore him at your own risk!
“Forget about his age, we’re talking now about an athlete who is near the top of the world leaderboards, wind-legal, in the month of May,” said the Track and Field Coach, Rob, in his latest YouTube video on May 24th. The same day, Bayanda Walaza has just dropped a banger of a performance in at the Zagreb Meeting – 9.94s!! The third fastest in the 2025 season. Rob said, “That same athlete is an Olympic medalist in the 4×1 and just won the World Relays.“At the 2025 World Athletics Relays in Guangzhou, China, Bayanda Walaza was a part of the men’s 4x100m relay team that clinched gold with a world-leading time of 37.61 seconds.
He even won the silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics with the South African men’s 4x100m relay team finishing second. The coach further brought to notice that, “This is somebody who, again, forgetting about the age, we are going to have to take seriously. I don’t think anybody’s really expecting Bayanda Walaza to get a medal at the Worlds, but the idea that he’s going to be there and that he’s likely going to be there at least in the semi-finals and the only way you keep him out of that final is you’re probably going to have to run 9.8-something. which is a very short list of men in the world who can actually do it.”
The 2025 World Athletics Championships will be held from September 13 to 21, 2025, in Tokyo, Japan, and Lyles had his eyes laser-focused on claiming three gold medals in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay. His best time in 100 meters is 9.79, which would have been good until Walaza’s best was 9.99, but now with the 9.94, the Olympic champion must also sweat.
This story is developing…
The post Noah Lyles & Co. Warned to Take Note of 18-Year-Old as Track & Field Coach Highlights Eye-Catching Stats appeared first on EssentiallySports.
