The path to Paris continues to crystallize.
With under 200 days until the start of the Paris Olympic Games, the 2024 USA Track and Field Indoor Championships served as a crucial litmus test for the nation’s top athletes.
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Olympic shoo-ins and hopefuls like Noah Lyles, Christian Coleman, Katie Moon, Grant Holloway and Ryan Crouser competed last weekend in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here are the results with major Olympic implications.
Noah Lyles topples Christian Coleman in men’s 60m
What it means for Paris: Until proven otherwise, Lyles is the king
Lyles edged Coleman by just one hundredth of a second in the men’s 60m on Saturday, winning his first national indoor title.
Crucially, the current “fastest man in the world” title-holder won the latest edition against Coleman and the field for supremacy of U.S. men’s sprinting.
Lyles finished in 6.43 seconds, a personal best by one hundredth of a second, just eclipsing Coleman’s time of 6.44.
Coleman entered as the undisputed king of the 60m, having outrun Lyles in their previous three showdowns. He is also the world record holder at 6.34 seconds.
And on Saturday, Coleman stormed out of the blocks to his typical commanding lead, but with 15 meters to go, Lyles overtook him and hit the finish line with his personal-best time.
“I come out here every year to try to get faster, faster and faster,” Lyles told NBC Sports’ Lewis Johnson after the race. “If I hadn’t faced Christian so many times, I couldn’t have boosted my confidence enough to say, ‘I’m ready to come out here and take on everybody.’”
Lyles and Coleman have brewed a well-publicized rivalry over the years. Coleman won the 2019 world 100m championship but was kept out of the Tokyo Olympics after missing drug tests.
Lyles then swooped in and swept the 100m and 200m at the 2023 World Championships, becoming the first man to do so since Usain Bolt in 2015.
The message is now even clearer as the Olympics draw nearer: Everyone is chasing Lyles.
We’ll get a Part 2 of Lyles vs. Coleman at the world indoor championships, which begin March 1 in Glasgow, Scotland. For Lyles, the trip will be his first to a world indoors. Coleman, however, won the world indoor 60m title in 2018.
Grant Holloway smashes his own world record
What it means for Paris: Momentum is with Holloway on his quest for Olympic gold
Holloway’s résumé in men’s hurdles is stacked but contains one glaring gap: no Olympic gold.
At 26, he’s already a three-time world champion and a 2020 Olympic silver medalist in the 110m hurdles. He hasn’t lost an indoor sprint hurdles race since March 2014, when he was 16 years old. Holloway is considered the greatest of all-time in the 60m hurdles.
Living up to the hype, Holloway blazed to a world record time of 7.27 seconds in the prelims on Friday, edging his own previous mark by 0.02.
Holloway will likely duel reigning Olympic champion Hansle Parchment of Jamaica in Paris. Parchment topped Holloway in the 110m hurdles at both the Xiamen Diamond League Final and the Prefontaine Classic in September, but Holloway’s latest triumph in Albuquerque brings some momentum to his side entering world indoors.
SEE MORE: U.S. Indoors: Grant Holloway breaks 60m hurdles world record
Katie Moon wins fourth indoor national championship
What it means for Paris: Moon again enters the Olympics as a commanding gold-medal favorite
Moon, the No. 1 women’s pole vaulter in the world, is now a four-time national indoor champion.
She is already set to enter Paris as the defending Olympic champion and two-time reigning world champion. After an injury scare in early February, Moon has reasserted her status as the world’s best.
The 32-year-old previously was forced to forfeit the 2024 Hauts-De-France Pas-De-Calais in Liévin, France, on February 10, citing an Achilles injury.
“My achilles was tight to the point that I didn’t feel comfortable jumping on it. … But I know in my gut it’s the right call for the rest of my season,” Moon wrote on her Instagram page.
Moon proved herself right with a commanding win on Saturday. She won the event with a height of 4.80m, beating out rival Sandi Morris by 5 centimeters. Morris is the 2016 Olympic women’s pole vault silver medalist and was recovering from an Achilles injury of her own.
Nikki Hiltz wins another 1500m crown
What it means for Paris: Hiltz is a top contender for their first Olympic spot
Hiltz clocked in at 4 minutes, 8.35 seconds to win their second consecutive indoor 1500m national championship, edging Emily Mackay by 0.35 seconds.
Hiltz continued a scorching streak that dates back to 2023, when they won both USA indoor and outdoor 1500m titles.
Hiltz now heads to worlds in Glasgow with a firestorm of momentum. In June, Hiltz will aim to keep it going at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, where they will fight for a spot at the Paris Olympics.
Hiltz stumbled to last place at the 2021 Trials but will enter this year’s version as one of the favorites.
Hiltz was named Outsports’ Non-Binary Athlete of the Year in 2023. They came out as transgender and nonbinary on International Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31, 2021) just before that year’s Olympic Trials.
Already the first nonbinary athlete to win a U.S. track and field title, Hiltz can reach another landmark by qualifying for the Olympics.