Jamaican sprint sensation Oblique Seville delivered a major upset on Saturday, July 19, at the 2025 London Diamond League meeting, handily defeating reigning Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles in the men’s 100-meter dash. Seville led from start to finish, marking Lyles’s first defeat at the London Diamond League in three years.
Seville blazed across the finish line in an impressive 9.86 seconds, the only athlete to break the 10-second barrier in a star-studded field. The competition included not only Lyles, who finished in 10.00 seconds in his first 100m race since being crowned Olympic champion at Paris 2024, but also Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo and South Africa’s Akani Simbine.
The highly anticipated race was initially billed as a showdown between the two Olympic short-sprint champions, Lyles and Tebogo, renewing their rivalry after Lyles narrowly beat Tebogo in the 200m at the recent Monaco Diamond League.
However, the day belonged to Seville, who exploded out of the blocks at London Stadium, the venue of the 2012 Olympics, leaving his formidable competitors in his wake. Seville even had time for a celebratory gesture, raising his left index finger as he crossed the finish line. Great Britain’s Zharnel Hughes secured the third spot on the podium with a time of 10.02 seconds.
“I am proud of how I ran amongst a stacked field, and to win. I was the only one to run under 10 seconds today, it is something special and phenomenal heading into a major championship later this year,” Seville told the Diamond League website, eyeing the upcoming World Championships. “Everything I have been practising in training, I delivered out there today. Coming out here and performing against these athletes makes me want to push a little harder. London is the place I wanted to run, so to get the Diamond League win here is very special to me.”
