World champion, Olympic champion. Noah Lyles talked an awful lot of talk in the build-up to Paris 2024, but tonight he backed up the bluster with blistering speed on the Stade de France track, surging past the field to pip them all on the line. There can be no argument now. “What’s the title of Olympic champion?” Lyles said, referring to “the fastest man on the planet” tag that goes with gold. “Amen.”
It doesn’t matter that he didn’t get near the world record he said he’d break, finishing in 9.79. It doesn’t matter that the winning margin was only five thousandths of a second, a time too miniscule to comprehend. Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson had been burdened with the title of heir to Usain Bolt after running the fastest time this year, and he led for 99m of this race. But Lyles fought back from dead last at 40m to be alongside Thompson as they crossed the line.
Thompson roared in celebration but his face dropped when the giant screen displayed “photo finish” by his name. They stared up from purgatory, waiting for the verdict. Lyles paced with his hands on his head. Then it came, and Lyles was off again, one moment ripping the number from his chest and raising it to the gods, the next streaking across the hammer field with the stars and stripes flapping in the wind.
Thompson was awarded silver as Lyles’ US teammate Fred Kerley took bronze. Lyles admitted afterwards that he thought he was too late.
“I went to Kishane, I said, ‘I’ll be honest, I think you had that one’. I was prepared to see his name pop up. I saw my name pop up and I said, ‘Goodness gracious, I’m incredible’. It’s the one I wanted. It’s the hard battle, the amazing opponents, everybody was healthy and came to fight. I’m the wolf among wolves.”
Thompson hoped to be the first Jamaican man since Bolt to win a global 100m title.
“I’m a bit disappointed but I’m super happy and grateful at the same time,” he said, “I’ve just got to take it as it is and move forward from here.
“I wasn’t patient enough with my speed and myself, I should have let my speed bring me to the line. I’ve learned from it. I couldn’t see Noah, but I think he could see me and said, ‘hey, Kishane, I thought you got it’. But I wasn’t sure, he was too far to my right, so I wasn’t sure. This is my closest race. It was that close.”
The US prides itself on its dominance in track and field but an American had not won this race for 20 years, when Justin Gatlin won gold in Athens. Bolt when the next three in a row in Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro before Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs, a long jumper by trade, stunned the world in Tokyo. Jacobs finished fifth in 9.85 sec, behind South Africa’s Akani Simbine who came fourth in 9.82.
For Lyles, this could be just the start. He still has the 200m – his strongest event – to come, as well as a 4x100m showdown with the Jamaicans.
“There’s plenty more. I hope you guys like Noah because I’ve got a lot more coming.”