The king of the men’s 100m has never really been in doubt this season— it’s Christian Coleman and the guys competing for second behind him. 

Even when the 23-year-old barely lost to 200m superstar Noah Lyles in his Shanghai season-opener in mid-May— they both ran 9.86— it took a lifetime best from Lyles to beat him by a razor-thin six one-thousandths of a second. Any uncertainty left by that loss was quickly squashed by Coleman in back-to-back 9.85 and 9.81 world-leading performances.

That’s why Coleman’s victory in the men’s 100m USATF final felt like more of a formality than a triumph. Yes, it was his first such national title, but any threat to the 60m world record holder’s status was removed by the time he took to the start line in Des Moines on Friday evening. Reigning world champion Justin Gatlin, who has a bye to this fall’s World Championships, elected to skip the final. Lyles skipped the event entirely to focus on the 200m.

An anticlimactic event wasn’t to be rescued by the clock— a Des Moines headwind that has been unrelenting so far at these championships meant that Coleman crossed the line with a comfortable margin in just 9.99. His closest competitor—34-year-old Mike Rodgers— was well back in 10.12.

But nonetheless, Coleman remains the undisputed fastest man in the world currently operating at or near the height of his still-very-young career. Such a handle on track’s premier event in the past would afford an athlete the majority of the limelight in the sprints.

Not so in 2019. 

With Lyles’ proclivity towards showmanship, combined with his eye-popping 19.50 200m best in July and 100m prowess, track commentators and fans have zeroed in on him—and not Coleman—as the so-called heir apparent to Usain Bolt. Even Lyles decision to just focus on the 200m for the 2019 championships has not dampened that noise, as the promise of a 2020 Olympic double has set him up to be the face of the men’s sprints in Tokyo.

Whether such a narrative bothers Coleman or not is unclear. It was clear that Coleman took issue with Lyles staring him down across the line back in Shanghai on May 18, as he wondered aloud on Twitter why such an early season race warranted Lyles’ gesturing.

Seems as if some people are confused. It’s nothing wrong with a PR. But if your goal is to run fast in May to taunt and flex online then your priorities aren’t straight imo. The season is just getting started

— Christian Coleman (@__coleman) May 20, 2019

But for his part, any residual beef has seemingly gone by the wayside as Coleman has since downplayed the scuffle. And the reserved 100m star must know that part of the focus on Lyles is his outsized personality, an element that the comparatively docile Coleman can’t hope to match. When the pair have been asked separately about their supposed disdain for each other, it has been just Lyles providing the money quotes and “rivalry” labels, not Coleman.

But away from all the headlines and chatter swirling around a sport desperate for a rivalry in any form, Coleman’s product on the track speaks plenty of the role he holds in the modern sprinting arms race: gate-keeper. 

Once again on Friday, the best blocks-to-drive phase man on Earth essentially had the race won by 30 meters. In that regard, the 100m gold medal favorite has set the minimum standard for competing with him: a poor start will leave you dead in the water against Christian Coleman.

It is Lyles who will have to figure out a way next season to counter Coleman’s masterful first half, the part of his race that has been weakest by far in his forays into the 100 meters. He may have bettered Coleman in May, but the new 100m U.S. champ has made apparent since that any stake on becoming the next transcendent sprinter in the mold of Bolt must go through him first.

Holding that key to the Fastest Man on Earth safe may not mean what it once did when Bolt demanded the entire world consider his greatness on a per race basis, but it’s still the most important job in track and field. The 100m king doesn’t have to move up to the 200m to prove he’s the greatest sprinter on the planet, it’s the other way around.

In that sense, Christian Coleman is the man right now. With how easy he’s making his dominance look, that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.