Just in time for the upcoming Olympics in Paris, he has released the latest installment of his Netflix sports documentary series, Sprint. This time, they follow the world’s fastest people, the current men’s and women’s sprint champions, as they prepare for the 2023 World Championships in Athletics in Budapest. The final two episodes of the six-part docuseries take place in Budapest, where all the major athletes are coming to claim the world title.
The series' heroes are major stars with multi-million dollar advertising contracts, Olympic medals and world championships. However, it is not certain that the wider public, except for athletics fans, knows their names.
Americans Noah Lyles and Sha'Carrie Richardson, Britain's Zharnell Hughes, Italy's Marcelle Jacobs (100m champion at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics) and Jamaican trio Elaine Thompson-Hera, Shericka Jackson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce are unknowable. Compete with famous soccer players or NBA stars. Although Fraser-Pryce, still active at 37, has won seven Olympic medals, Thompson-Hera has only five Olympic gold medals in her collection.
Lyles, who won the men’s 100m and 200m as well as the 4x100m relay at the world championships in Budapest, is fighting a battle on two fronts. On the one hand, he is fighting in the shadow of his great predecessor, the last true star of athletics, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who retired in 2017, and whose records are still unbeatable. (Bolt is an eight-time Olympic champion and 11-time world champion, and holds the world record in the 100m and 200m sprints.)
On the other hand, he wants to gain more recognition for athletics. That’s why he wants to be an individual champion in two events at the same Olympics, although he can live comfortably on the fact that he is virtually unbeatable in the 200m. But spectators need more than that, and so far only stars like Jesse Owens in 1936, Valeri Borzov in 1972 and Usain Bolt three times between 2008 and 2016 have managed the double. Lyles feels that for athletics to return to the hysteria and interest it had in Bolt’s time, he needs to become the new big boy in the sport, exciting fans on and off the track.
Can I tell you what bothers me? I'm watching the NBA Finals and it says world champions. Excuse me, but what kind of world champions? It's the NBA! Don't get me wrong, I love my country, but it's not the world!
He said after his victories in Budapest.
