Noah Lyles wins first U.S. men’s Olympic 100 meter gold in 20 years
SAINT-DENIS, France–Noah Lyles rocked back and forth impatiently in front of his starting blocks before the Olympic Games 100 meter final Sunday night and then took a step and then another in front of the starting line, as if he had waited long enough.
He outstretched both his hands in front of him at mid-chest level, both palms up and curling his fingers back and forth in a beckoning movement, seeming to say bring it on, bring it on.
Bring on all the doubts, the conventional wisdom that he didn’t have the start to claim sprinting’s greatest prize.
Bring on the ghosts of Tokyo.
Bring on the fastest men on the planet.
Lyles was ready.
Lyles, fulfilling the promise the sport first recognized more than a decade ago, taking it all on, the doubts and the demons, won the closest Olympic 100 final in history by a mere five-thousandths of a second on a night at Stade de France that was worth the three-year wait.
Lyles, last out of the starting blocks, didn’t claim the first Olympic 100 gold medal won by an American man since 2004 until the last step of the race, out leaning Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson at the finish line.
“I couldn’t see him, but I thought he was seeing me,” Thompson said later.
“Hey, Kishane I thought you got it,” Lyles told the Jamaican.
“I am not sure,” Thompson replied.
Both men and a sold out stadium had to wait several moments for a review of the photo finish to separate them, “PHOTO” listed next to seven of the eight names on the scoreboard, only Jamaica’s Oblique Seville, last in eighth place, receiving a time and a place.
“It was a crazy moment,” said Lyles, the reigning World 100 and 200 champion. “I did think Kishane had that and I was like, ‘I’m going to have to swallow my pride’, which I don’t have a problem doing. Everybody on the field came out knowing they could win this race. That’s the mindset we have to have. Iron sharpens iron.”
Finally the scoreboard went blank and then flashed the first two finishers.
1. Lyles 9.79
2. Thompson 9.79.
While both men were officially clocked in 9.79, the photo finish, going down to the thousandths of a second, gave Lyles a 9.784 to 9.789 edge.
“I saw my name,” Lyles said “and was like, ‘I didn’t do this against a slow crowd, I did this against the best of the best, on the biggest stage with the biggest pressure’. I thought ‘oh, my gosh, there it is.’
“I wasn’t even in the 100m in 2021. First Olympics in the 100 meters. Having the title, not just at world champs but at the Olympics, of world’s fastest man.”
The battle for the bronze medal was nearly as close, with Fred Kerley, Lyles’ U.S. teammate, edging South Africa’s Akani Simbine 9.81 and 9.82.
With the victory Lyles, 27, kept alive his hopes of becoming the first man not named Usain Bolt to sweep the Olympic 100 and 200 titles since Carl Lewis did it in Los Angeles 40 years ago.
“Pretty confident, can’t lie,” Lyles said when asked how he feels about the 200. “Kenny’s (Team USA’s Kenny Bednarek) definitely not going to take how he did here in the 100m lying down. He’s going to say, ‘I’m going after it in the 200m’. My job is to make sure…”Lyles paused.
“I’ll just leave it there. I’ll be winning.
“None of them is winning.”
The 100 victory, Lyles said, had “been years in the making.”
“It’s been a rollercoaster, ups and downs,” said Lyles, the overwhelming favorite to win the Olympic 200 three years ago in Tokyo only to finish third and then unburdened himself in an emotional and tearful stream of conscious account of his battles with ADD, dyslexia and bullying as a child and depression as a young adult.
He was asked when he set his sights on the 100 gold medal.
“The journey started after 2021 when I received this,” Lyles said in the post-race press conference, pulling out his Olympic 200 bronze medal from Tokyo. “I said I’ve got to evolve. I’m not going to feel the same every time I step on the track. I don’t feel the same now as I did in Budapest (at the 2023 World Championships when he won the 100m and 200m). I felt I was coming in as the favorite for this one. I was like, ‘shoot, these guys are ready, I got to be ready. All I need is a lane, and I’ll go out to prove who I am’.”
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