Timing is everything and Noah Lyles got his just right to win the men’s Olympic 100m final by the finest of margins in Paris on Sunday, August 4.
At first glance, it looked like the multiple world champion had been beaten to the punch by the emerging talent that is Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson. “After the race, I’ll be honest, I came over and told him: ‘I think you got that one big dog’,” admitted Lyles.
However, as the world’s fastest men pawed at the track and glared anxiously at the huge Stade de France screen for the verdict, it went the American’s way – he and Thompson both being clocked at 9.79 [1.0], but the margin of victory coming down to a mere five thousandths of a second. The 2022 world champion, Fred Kerley, took bronze in 9.81 seconds.
“He [Thompson] was out there in lane four and I was in lane seven and I couldn’t really see what was going on over there so I just had to keep running like I was going to win it and something said I needed to lean.”
As the replays were scrutinised, Lyles had in actual fact finished like a train and it was his dip for the line that ultimately saw him reach the promised land he has been aiming for ever since falling short of his own expectations by winning 200m bronze in Tokyo three years ago.
He has pinpointed that race as having fuelled his rise to the top of global sprinting, for making sure that he didn’t get “too comfortable”. He has been carrying that medal in his bag through the rounds in Paris and, at the post-race press conference, he even produced it in front of the media before saying: “I was fuelled as soon as I saw this in my hands.”
Lyles has also been talking for months about coming away from Paris with multiple gold medals – and now he has the first piece in that jigsaw thanks to what was a personal best. His pursuit of succession the 200m, his stronger event, begins this morning.
With the world watching on, the race was eventful even before the athletes arrived, given that a protestor attempted to get on to the track before being swiftly stopped.
A spectacular light show followed and accompanied the athletes into the arena but there was then a lengthy delay that ramped up the levels of anticipation and nervousness, for the crowd but particularly for the men who were about take part in one of the biggest sporting moment of their lives.
It was the defending champion, Marcell Jacobs, who had a superb start to burst into an early lead before Thompson – the world leader this year with 9.77 – took over, with the rest of the field in hot pursuit. He could have been forgiven for thinking he’d done enough but, as the final analysis emerged, Lyles ripped off his bib and showed his name to the crowd. As if they needed reminding of who they were watching.
It was a brilliant final, with Akani Simbine breaking the South African record with 9.82 in fourth and Jacobs finishing fifth in 9.85, also with a large ice pack strapped to his hamstring not long after he had crossed the line.
Letsile Tebogo clocked a Botswanan record with 9.86 and the third American in the final – Kenny Bednarek – 9.88 for eighth. That young Jamaican Oblique Seville clocked 9.91 but still finished last told its own story.
Source: AW
