Newly-crowned Olympic champion Noah Lyles revealed he thought Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson had beaten him to 100 metres gold following their photo finish in Paris.
Every occupant of the 80,000-seat Stade de France seemed to inhale at once before a roar erupted as the 27-year-old American’s name appeared first on the screen, then announced to the stadium as the victor by just five thousandths of a second, in a winning time of 9.79.784 seconds.
The 27-year-old rang the victory bell hard, fait accompli after setting out to settle the ‘fastest man’ debate once and for all in France.
Lyles, whose US team-mate Fred Kerley took bronze, said: “I knew that when the time came, for me to be able to say ‘this is the final, this is where I need to put it together’ I was going to do it.
“I did think (Thompson) had it at the end. I went up to him after, while we were waiting, and I even said ‘I think you’ve got that, good going,’ and then my name popped up and I’m like ‘oh my gosh, I’m amazing’.
“I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t ready to see it (his name) and that’s the first time I’ve ever said that. I wasn’t ready to see it.
“He was quite a few lanes down, he was in four, I was in seven so it was hard for me to picture where we were.”
The American world 100m and 200m champion’s triumph comes three summers after he entered the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics as the 200m favourite and world champion – but only claimed bronze.
Afterwards, he opened up about a lifelong battle with depression and the challenges of balancing the benefits of antidepressant medication with side effects that led to weight gain and affected his ability to perform – ultimately electing to wean off the treatment before those Games.
Earlier this week, he acknowledged he performs better in front of a full house, remembering the moment on the start line in Tokyo when he would usually say to himself “it’s showtime”, but instead found himself thinking “this is not it. This is not fun. This is not cool. This is not what I wanted.”
Lyles had no such trouble in Paris, where he thumped his chest at the start line and pumped up the electrified crowd, clearly revelling in the occasion, before they fell so quiet at the start of the race that it was possible to hear a plane passing overhead.
Then the man whose weakness is often said to be his starts got off to the joint slowest, an 0.178 reaction time alongside Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo.
Lyles, only learning that fact from a journalist, said: “Slowest reaction time – that’s crazy! I thought I was a little better than that but that goes to prove that reaction time does not win races.”
He entered these Olympics with the third-fastest time at 100m this year behind Thompson’s world-leading 9.77 and Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala’s 9.79, and as a result found himself in a position of needing to back up his signature bravado on Sunday night.
Thompson qualified fastest of the semi-finalists in 9.80, his compatriot Seville Oblique just behind him in a personal-best 9.81 and Lyles two hundredths of a second behind.
Oblique was the only man who did not have to wait for his place to be confirmed – the last-placed man in 9.91.
Lyles is in Paris with a point to prove, embroiled in a debate before the Games about who was currently fastest man on the planet – not that he ever had any doubts.
The Floridian – who is looking to do the double in the 200 metres – emphatically reiterated his answer, this time with his feet instead of his rhetoric.
Earlier, Team GB sprinters Louie Hinchliffe and Zharnel Hughes saw their bid for Olympic 100m gold come to an end in the semi-finals.
Hinchliffe said: “It was a good experience, not the result that I wanted. Definitely a lot to learn. I haven’t seen the race back.
“I am disappointed. The time is OK but it’s where I finished in the race. I will come back stronger next year. I will not regress. It’s my first year on the scene. There is a lot more to come.
“Definitely, definitely LA, I will be there (in the final). Next year as well. There are a lot of world championships between then and now. There is a lot of time.
Hughes has another chance to try for a first Olympic medal when the men’s 200m heats begin on Monday.
He said: “I am a fighter. I am very determined and that’s why I wanted to give it a go. I got the training in but the races is what I needed to get me race sharp.”
