Noah Lyles thought that he had destroyed Usain Bolt’s 200m record before discovering he only ran 185m in the WRONG lane

AMERICAN sprinter Noah Lyles thought he was the fastest man on the planet after smashing Usain Bolt's 200m record - but then realised he's made a huge mistake.

The 24-year-old had just clocked a time of 18.90 seconds at the Inspirational Games last summer.

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That was significantly quicker than Bolt's 19.19 time set in 2009.

Lyles was racing in Florida, in a transatlantic virtual race against Churandy Martina in Holland and Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre in Switzerland.

He blew away the rest of the field and looked almost in disbelief when he saw his own time show up on the clock.

When he crossed the line, BBC commentator Steve Cram said: "That cannot be right.

"Even he has got his hands in the air wondering what is going on." 

With a previous personal best of 19.50, it didn't take long to determine why his time broke a world record.

It then emerged that Lyles had been running in the wrong lane.

And he had, in fact, only sprinted 185m.

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The world champion later tweeted: "You can't be playing with my emotions like this….Got me in the wrong lane smh."

Lyles' error meant he missed out on the £8000 winner's cheque with Lemaitre taking the money with a time of 20.65.

He will be hoping to make up for that by winning 200m Olympic Gold this month in Tokyo.