Sha'Carri Richardson, Noah Lyles Advance in Tokyo World Championships 100m Heats

TOKYO -- America's two big-name sprinters, Sha'Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles, both walked off the track Saturday with reason to think they might have found what's been missing over a less-than-perfect 2025.

What a place to find it -- at the world championships in Tokyo, a metropolis that has been waiting four years for a chance to cheer on the world's fastest stars.

Both defending world champions won their preliminary heats in the 100 meters. Those results should surprise nobody, but they still brought bursts of joy -- both from the runners and from the loud sellout crowd that was absent four years ago, when Japan National Stadium was the centerpiece of an Olympics held during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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"Last one, I could hear my own thoughts echoing off the wall," Lyles said of the Tokyo Games. "So completely different."

Lyles won his heat in 9.95 seconds -- the same time posted by Jamaica's Kishane Thompson, who ran hard for only about the first 60 meters of his race.

Lyles beat Thompson by .005 seconds at the Paris Olympics last year, and though the American comes in as an underdog this time, he feels he unlocked something in practice over the past week.

"I was tightening my muscles, and every time I tighten my muscles, my stride gets shorter, and that's why I wasn't getting the results I wanted," said Lyles, who still hasn't cracked 9.9 this year.

He loosened up and, suddenly, he said, "It's working."

Richardson has been in even rougher shape, slowed by an injury for most of the year.

She was slow out of the starting blocks Saturday -- a typical problem of hers -- but when she gets things into top gear, still elite. Her winning time of 11.03 seconds was her best of the year -- not great by any means, but trending upward.

"I know that this year is not what I ideally saw as being my golden year," she said. "But when I think of 'golden' now, I think of buried treasure, and sometimes you've got to dig through the dirt to get to the gold."

The semifinals and finals for both 100s are set for Sunday, with all the top contenders -- including U.S. champ Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, Olympic champ Julien Alfred, Lyles' frenemy Kenny Bednarek and Jamaica's Oblique Seville -- still in the mix.