The camera zeroed in on Noah Lyles, as it so often does. The world champion flashed his million-dollar smile.

Sporting his navy blazer, Lyles stood giddily on the Team USA boat as it began its voyage down the Seine during the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony. Lyles wanted to share a message with the world.

The camera zoomed in a bit more. Lyles lifted his left hand toward the lens and flashed his four freshly done nails. Each nail was white with a blue letter painted on top. Put together, they read: I-C-O-N.

“An icon living, for sure,” Lyles said with a tongue waggle.

On the NBC broadcast, Peyton Manning chuckled and dished his take.

"It's not cockiness when you can back it up,” the two-time Super Bowl champion said. “He didn't come here to paint. He came here to win."

Now, as Lyles' second Olympics arrive in full force, it’s time for the 27-year-old to back that up in Paris. He’s already a six-time world champion and an Olympic bronze medalist. He’s owns the treasured world’s fastest man title.

But to elevate from the current status to that of an I-C-O-N — such as Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis and Jesse Owens — Lyles is vying for one of track and field’s most iconic accomplishments: the Olympic double.

Only nine men in history have achieved the double, winning the 100m and 200m finals in the same Olympic Games. Lyles intends to be the 10th.

“We’re coming after everything,” Lyles said this February. “All the Olympic medals. I don’t care who wants it. It’s mine.”

The famed Olympic double is enough, but Lyles is promising extra. During that Opening Ceremony interview on the boat, he promised he’d set a new personal best in Paris — and much more.

“It’s hard to do it once,” Lyles said of winning a gold medal. “It’s incredibly hard to do it twice. If I can do it three times, even four, we’re talking about legacy no one would be able to touch, to forever be cemented as a great athlete.”

Lyles says he plans to win four medals: in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and 4x400m relay. His status for the 4x400m is still up in the air, but Lyles is pining for a shot.

Lyles talks a big game, and he draws headlines for it. But that brand of pomposity pervades the sprinting world with the regularity of glitzy new shoe models.

Just look at the recent doublers. When Usain Bolt pulled off his second double, he pulled out a gem.

“I’m now a legend, I'm also the greatest athlete to live,” Bolt said in London.

As Peyton Manning would say, Bolt backed it up. Now, Lyles’ moment is here.

Lyles says the 200m is his “baby,” and it is. Lyles is the American record holder in the event with a time of 19.31 seconds. He’s won three 200m world titles and is untouchable in the event. Since finishing third at the Tokyo Olympics, Lyles hasn’t lost a single 200m race.

In Paris, U.S. teammates Kenny Bednarek and Erriyon Knighton can push Lyles, but they’ve yet to beat him. Tokyo Olympic champion Andre De Grasse of Canada isn’t a favorite anymore, and his personal best lags 0.31 seconds below Lyles’ best. 21-year-old Botswanan stud Letsile Tebogo posted a 19.50 in London last year and might push Lyles, but that isn't likely in the 200m, Lyles' "baby."

"He’s like, 'I'm still m-fing Noah Lyles, and I will figure it out,'" NBC Sports broadcaster and four-time Olympic medalist Ato Boldon said. "He is so supremely confident.

He has such a phenomenal track record when it counts. I'm not betting against him.

The second leg of that Olympic double, the 100m, is far more likely to trip up Lyles. His 2023 world title in the 100m gives him certain juice — Lyles beat out Tebogo, Great Britain’s Zharnel Hughes and 23-year-old Jamaican Oblique Seville in that race. He's also fresh off a personal-best 9.81 at the London Diamond League in July. But still, many aren’t picking the world champion to win the 100m in Paris.

Going by personal bests, fellow American Fred Kerley boasts the top 100m time in this field: 9.76 seconds. Kerley took silver in the Tokyo Olympic 100m as Italian Marcell Jacobs shocked the track community with gold.

Jamaican Kishane Thompson, 23, is inexperienced on the international stage, but he posted a scorching time of 9.77 at this year’s Jamaican Trials. That time designates Thompson as the 2024 world leader in the 100m and slates him a certain threat to top Lyles. Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala also has a speedy 9.77 to his name, although that was three years ago.

Lyles has honed his short-distance game in recent years. He won the World Indoor title in the 60m this March. Momentum is with him, and the spotlight is blazing on him. He’s in the conversation with fellow sprint star Sha’Carri Richardson, Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky and others as the American faces of these Paris Olympics.

Achieving the Olympic double would place Lyles on an ultra-exclusive list, joining Lewis and Bolt as the only men to double since the fifth Apollo moon landing.

“I’m ready to make a moment,” Lyles said. “I hope everyone’s ready to watch. The more you cheer, the faster I run.”

If he runs fast enough, the world will see Lyles as he sees himself: an I-C-O-N.