Noah Lyles claimed an extraordinary gold medal in the closest men’s 100 metre final in history – despite Kishane Thompson’s foot crossing the line first. Races are judged on whose chest is first through the tape, with American Lyles winning by a wafer-thin margin of 0.005 seconds in a race in which he was last until nearly 50m. Here is how he did it.
Lyles, predictably, had made the most eye-catching of arrivals, sprinting down as far as the 40m line when he was announced into the stadium. Plenty of people watching wondered if he should conserve some energy but, clearly wanting to be the showman that the men’s 100m has lacked ever since Usain Bolt, he continued his high-energy antics.
The wait between the athletes arriving out on the track and the actual start of the race felt interminable. Lengthy introductions, booming music, a spectacular light show, darkness and then a longer than anticipated wait for the bulbs inside the Stade de France to reach optimal brightness. That was even before the eight athletes had been called to their blocks to greet the silence that accompanied the starter’s orders.
With Lyles’s rivals having warmed themselves up with such vigour and precision on a separate track just outside the Stade de France, there was a theory that the wait might have particularly affected the two Jamaican sprinters, Oblique Seville and Thompson. They had looked capable of running so much faster in the heats and, while nerves may also have been a factor, they looked tight by comparison.
Lyles has never been a fast starter and, true to form, his reaction time from when the gun sounded and his feet actually left the blocks was the joint slowest in the entire field at 0.178sec. Thompson was crucially not much faster, ensuring that Fred Kerley, who was largely unfancied for gold, took an instant lead.
Sprinters then vary greatly in how long they keep their heads down but this next part of the race was excellent for Thompson who, by 30m, had taken the lead and was moving faster than anyone at 40.6km per hour. Lyles, who was now just touching that same speed, had taken much longer to get there and was actually still last out of all eight runners even at 30m.
Lyles had made the unexpected decision earlier this year to turn up at the World Indoor Championships and take on Christian Coleman, the best 60m runner in history over the distance. He could not win, but it was a critical decision for what would follow here in Paris. Knowing that he was the fastest finisher, Lyles desperately wanted to shorten the moment between the start of the race and when he was upright out of the ‘drive phase’ and ready to launch into full flight.
This transition was not instantly noticeable during the race, with Lyles still trailing Thompson at 40m but making crucial inroads into the rest of the field. By halfway, he had reached 43.5kph – almost his top speed during the race – which is quicker than anyone else managed through the full 100m. It meant that he had moved from eighth to third between 30m and 60m. This meant that it was now simply a question of holding his form and hoping that there would be enough track to complete his surge through the field.
Lyles had reached overdrive by 60m, peaking at 43.6kpm in the 10m to 70m, which is at the moment when those 100m specialists in front of him were starting to struggle to hold their form and just faltering into the final metres. What Lyles did brilliantly here, however, was to maintain his concentration, keep relaxed and not allow the desperation that he would have felt at still not quite hitting the front to impact his running. He calls the 200m “his wife” and the 100m “his mistress” and knew that he just needed to stay faithful to his old instincts that had been honed from years of running over the longer sprint.
It was a masterful display of nerve and mind over matter just as much as pure physical speed or power. Yes, it was something that he had practised endlessly with his coach but to actually deliver it in front of a watching world was extraordinary.
