SAINT-DENIS, France —
The U.S. sprinter won the 100 at the Paris Olympics. Lyles crossed the finish line with a gold-medal winning time of 9.79 (.784) in a photo finish to win track and field’s marquee sprint event. It took a photo view to reveal Lyles had beaten Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by five-thousandths of a second. American Fred Kerley posted a time of 9.81 to get bronze.
The runners had to wait for photo review moments after the race and didn’t know who won seconds after the race. Lyles told reporters later that he thought Thompson had won.
“I did think Thompson had it at the end,” Lyles said. “I went up to him when we were waiting and I said, ‘I think you got that one big dog.’ And then my name popped up and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m amazing.’
“I wasn’t ready to see (my name). That’s the first time I have ever said that in my head, that I wasn’t ready to see it. … It was hard for me to picture where we were. I guess that was a good thing.”
The moment belonged to Lyles inside a packed house at Stade de France as soon as the announcement was made. Lyles is the first American sprinter to win an Olympic gold medal in the men’s 100 since Justin Gatlin won gold at the 2004 Athens Games.
“It’s the one I wanted, it’s the hard battle, it’s the amazing opponents,” Lyles said after the race. “Everybody came prepared for the fight and I wanted to prove that I’m the man among all of them, I’m the wolf among wolves.”
Lyles came into the Olympics confident. He ran a personal-best 9.81 last month. He told USA TODAY Sports that he wanted to win multiple Olympic gold medals. He’s well on his way to achieving his goal.
The 100 victory earned Lyles his first Olympic gold medal. He received a bronze in the 200 at the Tokyo Olympics. He’s also a six-time world champion gold medalist, but Sunday’s Olympic gold medal in the 100 might be the crowning achievement of his career thus far.
SAINT-DENIS, France — Before Noah Lyles walked onto the track in the men’s 100-meter final Sunday night, his coach Lance Brauman told him that the next time they saw one another, Lyles would be an Olympic champion.
“I said ‘Hey, a showman shows up when the show’s on,'” Brauman recalled. “And that’s what he did.”
Lyles surged to a thrilling and momentous Olympic gold medal Sunday, cementing his place as the fastest man in the world by beating Kishane Thompson of Jamaica in a photo finish that might go down as the closest final in Olympic history.
At around the 60-meter mark, Brauman said he felt really good about Lyles’ positioning. At 80 meters, he thought “holy cow, he’s right there.” At 90, he started to worry. It was a much closer race than he thought.
“I thought he was going to run a (personal best). I have for the past three weeks,” Brauman said. “It was just a matter of, was he going to run a big enough PB to win the race? And he did.” – Tom Schad
Noah Lyles was diagnosed with asthma as child
Adding to the already-impressive nature of Noah Lyles’ accomplishment is the fact he was able to achieve it with asthma — a respiratory condition that affects the airways in the lungs, causing a difficulty to breathe. He is one of several Olympic athletes in Paris who has the condition, as noted by the American Lung Association.
Lyles has suffered from the condition since he was a child, which even caused him to be homeschooled, he told CNN in 2020.
“Asthma definitely affects kind of everything I do in terms of health, physical fitness, sometimes even emotional because if you’re emotionally fatigued, that can bring your immune system down,” Lyles told CNN at the time.
ESPN reports that, in 2016, Lyles’ asthma attacks “largely subsided” due to supplements and USATF-approved medication.
Lyles tweeted about his asthma Sunday, saying, “I have Asthma, allergies, dyslexia, ADD, anxiety, and Depression. But I will tell you that what you have does not define what you can become. Why Not You!” – Austin Curtwright
What determines victory in Olympic photo finish?
Just after the men’s 100-meter race concluded, NBC’s Mike Tirico gave a brief explanation of how track and field race winners are determined. In his explanation, Tirico said Olympic races determine a victor when any part of the leading runner’s torso crosses the vertical plane of the finish line.
USA Track & Field, the governing body that oversees Team USA’s international track and field competitions, has similar language published in its 2024 USATF Competition Rules.
On page 67 of the document, under Rule 163 (which concerns running competitions), the first point states: “Competitors shall be placed at the finish line in the order in which any part of their bodies (i.e., the ‘torso,’ as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, hands, legs, or feet) reaches the finish line.” – Lorenzo Reyes
When does Noah Lyles run next?
Lyles will start his pursuit of 200-meter gold Monday with round 1 heats. He’s in the sixth heat with Jamaica’s Bryan Levell and Canada’s Andre De Grasse, the defending 200-meter champion from Tokyo. De Grasse did not qualify for the 100 final. The first heat starts at 7:55 p.m. Monday in Paris (1:55 p.m. ET). The top three in each heat advance to the semifinals, which are Wednesday. The final is Thursday.
Keisha Caine Bishop on Noah Lyles’ dreams of turning pro
Noah Lyles’ mother knew her sons’ dream of becoming professional track stars when they were still teenagers.
“In 10th grade they wanted to go professional out of high school and I was like are you crazy,” Keisha Caine Bishop, the mother of Noah and Josephus, told USA TODAY Sports this summer.
In July 2016 when Noah was 19 years old, he and his younger brother, Josephus, 18 at the time, turned professional and signed a contract with Adidas instead of competing collegiately for the University of Florida.
“I had to go back and apologize,” Caine Bishop said. “I realized that’s not fair to kill somebody’s dream, especially if they are willing to do the work, and they were willing to do the work.”
Noah and Josephus have been running professionally since. Josephus isn’t on the Olympic team in Paris but ran the 100 and 200 at Olympic trials. – Tyler Dragon
NBC broadcaster incorrectly calls 100 meters race winner
If you thought Noah Lyles missed out on the gold medal in the 100-meter dash, you weren’t the only one.
NBC broadcaster Leigh Diffey was into the moment like the rest of the audience taking in the 100 meters, but he seemed a bit more decisive with his call than what the eye told. As the sprinters crossed the line, the cameras panned to Jamaican sprinter Kishane Thompson and Diffey declared Thompson the winner, not Lyles.
“Jamaica’s gonna do it, Kishane Thompson is a gold medalist, on debut,” Diffey declared, before going silent.
The competitors were all huddled waiting for photo evidence of the finish. When the photo did come in, it was Lyles who was the winner of the race, by five-thousandths of a second over Thompson.
Lyles’ victory secures the USA’s first gold medal in the 100 meter in 20 years, and solidifies his standing as the fastest man in the world. – Joe Rivera
Results of the men’s 100 meters
1 Noah Lyles, USA 9.79
2 . Kishane Thompson, Jamaica 9.79
3. Fred Kerley, USA 9.81
4. Akani Simbine, South Africa 9.82
5. Lamont Marcell Jacobs, Italy 9.85
6. Letsile Tebogo, Botswana 9.86
7. Kenny Bednarek, USA 9.88
8. Oblique Seville, Jamaica 9.91
According to World Athletics, it’s the first time in history that eight men have broken 10 seconds in a wind-legal race.
