When push comes to shove, expect Lyles and Bednarek back on the track for a rematch at worlds

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TOKYO (AP) — With a message-sending staredown, then the two-handed shove that followed, then the trash talk that came after that, Noah Lyles and Kenny Bednarek set the stage for what could be the best legit sprint rivalry track has seen in decades.

Their next showdown: track and field world championships in Tokyo.

Whether it was merely a dose of WWE-like bluster or there’s really something gnawing at two of the world’s best sprinters, the mix-up after Lyles’ 200-meter win at last month's U.S. championships delivered a ready-made storyline for a sport that struggles to capture the world’s imagination the way it did in the Usain Bolt era and before.

Worlds start Saturday when track unfolds its big tent in Tokyo for the first time since the COVID-tinged 2021 Olympics.

The highlight could very well be the Sept. 19 showdown expected in the 200-meter final between Lyles, the three-time defending world champion at that distance, and Bednarek, who has beaten a less-than-100% Lyles in the race at the last two Olympics.

Since that shove, Bednarek has said that he and Lyles have discussed things behind closed doors and “everything is sorted.”

But this quote from Bednarek, the 26-year-old, two-time Olympic silver medalist, just minutes after the race, has been reheated and rehashed aplenty since their tiff on Aug. 4:

“Unsportsmanlike (expletive) and I don’t deal with that,” he said. “It’s a respect factor. He’s fresh. Last time we lined it up, I beat him, that’s all I can say. Next time we line up, I’m going to win. That’s all that matters.”

Lyles and Bednarek are also among the favorites in the 100 meters, where Lyles is both the defending world and Olympic champion. Also in the mix in both races is Botswana's Letsile Tebogo, the 200-meter Olympic champion who labeled Lyles as “arrogant” after beating him in Paris.

“For me, I choose off the spotlight and then just my legs do the talking,” Tebogo said this week during an appearance as a global ambassador for a World Athletics kids program.

Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, who lost to Lyles by a scant .005 seconds at the Paris Games last year, is very much in the mix for this one, as well. He won in August -- the only time he, Lyles and Bednarek were on the track together this year -- and has the world’s best time of 2025 at 9.75 seconds.

Another Jamaican, Oblique Seville, has beaten Lyles both times they've raced this year.

As always, all eyes in the women’s 100 will be on Sha’Carri Richardson, though she is a longshot to repeat as world champion.

The favorite is Richardson’s training partner, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, who is undefeated at 100 meters this year, has the season-best time of 10.65 seconds and recently beat Richardson by .32 at a race in Brussels.

Olympic champion Julien Alfred is also a contender.

Richardson made headlines at nationals when news emerged of her arrest on a domestic violence charge for an argument that escalated at the Seattle airport with her boyfriend, Christian Coleman.

Coleman did not pursue the case; Richardson expressed her remorse on social media. Meanwhile, in a year plagued by injury, she failed to qualify for the 200 meters, where she won a bronze medal at worlds in 2023.

Virtually every time Faith Kipyegon steps on the track, she’s aiming to set a record, or make history, or both.

In June, the Kenyan fell six seconds short in her much-hyped Nike-backed attempt to become the first woman to break the 4-minute barrier in the mile.

But less than two weeks later, she came back and broke her own record (for the second time) in the 1,500 meters – the metric mile -- finishing in 3 minutes, 48.68 seconds at the Prefontaine Classic.

“It’s a mindset,” Kipyegon said. “If you have it set in your mind that, I want to achieve this goal and do this, then it’s all about the mind. And also the preparation and the vision.”

Kipyegon is eligible to defend her title in both the 1,500 and 5,000 meters in Tokyo. She has not raced at a distance longer than 3,000 meters this year.

Since first breaking the pole vault world record in 2020, Mondo Duplantis has surpassed his own mark 12 times, each time by a scant centimeter.

When he breaks it at major events, such as world championships, Duplantis earns a $100,000 bonus from World Athletics, in addition to incentives from his shoe company Puma.

It gives him no reason to shoot higher than .01 over his previous mark, and when he set his latest mark – 6.29 meters at a meet last month in Budapest – Puma sent out a cheeky tweet: “Please give us a rest.”

It’s a method of “micro-breaking” shared by the best pole vaulter of a previous generation, Sergei Bubka, who broke his own record 13 times in the 1980s and ’90s, with most of those marks only one centimeter higher than the last.

The heat is stifling in Tokyo this week, and the forecast calls for more of the same.

In a move World Athletics insists will help, even though lows each day are forecast for the upper 70s (around 25 Celsius), organizers moved the race walks (Saturday) and marathons (Sunday and Monday) up by 30 minutes to start at 7:30 a.m. local time.

It is the latest in a long string of weather-related issues for this sport.

—When the Olympics were in Tokyo four years ago, organizers moved both marathons 700 miles north to Sapporo, where it was cooler.

—In 2019 with the world championships in Doha, Qatar, the starting gun went off at midnight for the marathons.

—This year, worlds were pushed to the tail-end of the track calendar in hopes of the weather being less stifling in Tokyo in September than in August. No such luck.

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