Noah Lyles wins 100 meters in photo finish for first of possible four gold medals

PARIS — When Noah Lyles put his spike into Stade de France’s purple track for his first stride Sunday night of the Paris Olympics 100-meter final, he was already behind. In an event in which margin for error is slimmest, his reaction time to the starting gun was the slowest. 

Halfway through, Lyles, 27, of the U.S., was still in seventh place in an eight-man field, trying to chase down Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, who owned not only this season’s fastest time but also the fastest time in the semifinal round contested earlier Sunday. 

By the final steps Lyles had caught up so much to Thompson, American Fred Kerley and South Africa’s Akani Simbine that he did something he rarely practices — dipping his shoulder at the finish.

Even then, Lyles was unconvinced he had won the gold medal he had so boldly predicted, and so badly wanted, for three years. The scoreboard offered no indication of who had won gold, silver or bronze as it processed a photo finish, a sold-out, raucous stadium sharing in the uncertainty.

“I think you got that one, big dog,” Lyles told Thompson. 

“I’m not even sure,” Thompson replied. “It was that close.”

When the results appeared, it showed Lyles had earned his first Olympic gold medal in 9.79 seconds — a personal best that keeps him on the path to earn the four gold medals that he has described as his goal for months. It also puts him on track to become the first runner to win both the 100 and the 200 at a single Olympics since Usain Bolt did it three consecutive times from 2008 to 2016.

Lyles, the first American to win gold in the Olympic 100 meters since Justin Gatlin in 2004, had edged Thompson by five-thousandths of a second, with Kerley immediately behind in 9.81. 

“I didn’t do this against a slow field. I did this against the best of the best, on the biggest stage with the biggest pressure,” Lyles said. “And seeing that name, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, there it is.’”

It was so close that Kerley believed “whoever dipped at the line, they won that race.”

It was so fast that the 9.88 Kenny Bednarek of the U.S. ran for seventh place would have medaled at both the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

Lyles had earned a world championship in the 100 only 12 months ago, as part of the three golds at those 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, but Lyles understood that Olympic performances resonate more deeply than any others, because they do with him, too.

Sunday represented not only a 100-meter comeback, but also a three-year comeback.

After he entered the Covid-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics as a 200-meter favorite in 2021 only to finish third, he left depressed and scared to race again until a therapist he has seen since high school challenged him to get back on the track.

Though he had won world titles at 200 meters in 2022 and 2023 and the world title at 100 last year to claim the unofficial title of “World’s Fastest Man,” he had spent the three years since then working his way back to a place of physical and mental readiness to redeem himself on the night of an Olympic final.

That process culminated Sunday when Lyles outlasted a past Olympic champion (Italy’s Marcell Jacobs), a former world champion (Kerley) and the year’s fastest man, Thompson, who was nearly the night’s fastest, too. 

“I knew once the year started that this was not 2021,” he said. “I knew that when the time came for me to be able to say this is the final, this is when I need to put it together, I was going to do it.” 

Lyles ripped off the paper bib bearing his last name that had been pinned to his blue uniform amid a cathartic celebration, thrusting it toward the crowd before appearing to wipe away tears and wrapping an American flag around his shoulders.

Saturday, Lyles had sparked skepticism when he finished second in his first preliminary heat while other contenders cruised through theirs.

He appeared more focused and ready for the moment in Sunday’s semifinal by crossing the line in 9.83 — just two-hundreds off his personal best — locked in a stare-down with the only man faster, Jamaican Oblique Seville.

But he was not necessarily the man to beat. Thompson produced the fastest semifinal of 9.80 and made it look casual. By qualifying times, it was the most difficult final to make in the event’s 128-year Olympic history. 

Lyles has proved divisive among fans and others within the sport because of his willingness to candidly discuss his ambitions to transcend the sport by drawing huge audiences through accomplishing huge goals — no track and field athlete has won four golds in a single Olympics since Carl Lewis in 1984.

Emboldened by the gold medal in his pocket Sunday night and encouraged by Kerley at the post-race news conference not to hold back, Lyles said he now wants Adidas, the sponsor that signed him in the spring to the richest contract for a track athlete since Bolt, to make him his own signature sneaker. And he guaranteed he would win the 200 meters, as well.

“I’ll be winning,” Lyles said. “None of them is winning. When I come off the turn, they will be depressed.” 

When Lyles came out of the blocks, and even when he crossed the line, there was no indication he would be the victor. Then he saw his name pop up. Last at the start, he was first when it mattered.