Mind games in track and field linger as finals approach

Tokyo, Japan — In a sport where margins of a hairpin decide winners, mental tactics are under the microscope as Noah Lyles seeks to defend his world 200m title on Friday. Lyles, among track's most outspoken figures, suggested before the weekend's 100m heat that Jamaica's Oblique Seville would get off to a slow start after spotting the 24-year-old looking unsettled. Seville then delivered a personal best in the final and became the first Jamaican man to win a global 100m title since Usain Bolt, while Lyles took bronze.

On Thursday night, Lyles appeared to test rivals again, establishing a sizeable lead and then not letting up, clocking the fastest time this year. After the first 50 meters, he said, he thought he heard Great Britain's Zharnel Hughes running alongside him and told himself, "You ain't catching me." "The message today was that they can't beat me. Don't miss the final, it's going to be magical," Lyles added. Hughes, who has acknowledged that Lyles's remarks before last summer's Olympics helped kick him into gear, has said the remarks created added motivation for him.

Experts say mind games can backfire. Former world 200m champion Ato Boldon recalls an attempt to unsettle him at the Sydney 2000 Olympics by American John Capel. Capel hadn't run in the 100m and tried to psych out Boldon in the call room, but the Trinidadian says the other way around: Capel got so hyped up that he flinched, and Boldon believes Capel finished last after the gun. "I would say 80% of performance at major championships is mental because everybody is strong. It's a matter of being ready for the fight. If you're not, you're done," Boldon says. Boldon also recalls how opponents' attempts to read him backfired: "Who are you trying to convince - me or yourself?"

Call rooms in Tokyo—where a 20-minute bus journey to the stadium adds to the tension—are a particular theater for gamesmanship. Stef Reid, the British Paralympic bronze medallist, calls call rooms one of the weirdest experiences in sport, noting that quiet confidence can be as off-putting as loud taunts. "It's easy to spot who is nervous and ready to crack. They're fidgety. They're checking their bag and equipment constantly," she said, adding that she chose to project calm. Former rival Daley Thompson is cited by Steve Cram as one of the best at reading opponents: "He saw it as a real sign of weakness if anyone reacted." Paula Radcliffe says mind games are everywhere, and that the Tokyo bus ride to the venue can extend the psychological curtain: "The call room is always a very interesting place to be - and here in Tokyo you also have the twist of the bus journey to the stadium to extend that." Jake Wightman, Britain's 1500m silver medalist, described the silent bus trip before the final as an additional nerve-wracking factor.

Jake Wightman and his British teammates, including Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen, have perfected the art of trying to unsettle rivals in recent years. Kerr often wears sunglasses to obscure his facial expressions, a small tactic in a wider game of reading opponents. "All of us do it in one way or another," Cram says, but he adds that the outward mind games are sometimes a screen for inner doubts. "But often the so-called mind games are played outwardly by people who feel a need to address their own doubts or insecurities. I think a lot of it in today's world, though, is not really mind games. It's athletes just trying to get attention and exposure."