Budapest 2023: Noah Lyles shades Botswana's youngster Letsile Tebogo

World champion Noah Lyles is talking tough again. This time, he shaded Botswana's youngster Letsile Tebogo ahead of the World Championships in Budapest.

In a recent post by the World Athletics Instagram page, they did a graphic titled 'The Battle of the Showmen' comparing their times as the top two fastest runners this season as a build-up to the men's 200m in Budapest.

Lyles commented: "You can send your best man, you gonna lose your best hitter," he wrote, which looked like a shade to Tebogo and his 200m rivals.

Both athletes faced each other at the London Diamond League, where the US champion was victorious in a Season's Best (SB) of 19.47s, and the youngster followed closely behind in an African Record (AR) of 19.50s.

Tebogo's time obliterated Namibia's Frankie Fredericks's long-standing AR of 19.68s set at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games and propelled him as the sixth fastest in world history.

With Lyles already talking tough ahead of the World Championships, the men's 200m event is expected to be a firecracker as the top three positions aren't guaranteed and there's a high probability of Usain Bolt's World Record of 19.19s going down.