2024 Paris Olympics: USA's Noah Lyles wins 100-meter gold in thrilling photo finish (2024)

Medal table | Olympic schedule |How to watch | Olympic news

PARIS — For months, Noah Lyles has aggressively chased the spotlight. He invited Netflix cameras to trail him wherever he goes, strutted the runways of Milan and Paris and offered himself up as a guest on the late-night talk-show circuit.

Whenever a microphone or camera is nearby, Lyles hasn’t been shy about laying out his grandiose goals for the Paris Olympics. America’s fastest man has told anyone who will listen how he intends to eclipse the legendary Usain Bolt, how he hopes to capture four Olympic gold medals, how he’d like to return home a world-record holder.

“Now you’re going on the Mount Rushmore,” he recently explained to the "Tonight Show’s" Jimmy Fallon. “Now you’re the greatest of the great.”

The first chance for Lyles to back up his audacious talk finally arrived Sunday night when 80,000 roaring fans jammed into Stade de France to watch track and field’s glamor race. Lyles took his place alongside seven rivals for the Olympic 100-meter final. For someone, the title of world’s fastest man was just a sub-10-second sprint away.

"A showman shows up when the show's on," Lyles' coach Lance Brauman told him between the semifinal and final.

Lyles, to say the least, showed up.

White beads woven in his hair and nails decorated red, white and blue, Lyles bolted out of the tunnel as the PA announcer introduced him. He ran 15 meters down the track, leaping high in the air and gesturing for the crowd to get louder.

When the starter’s gun sounded, Lyles burst out of the blocks well enough to stay in contention and accelerated like his spikes were rocket-powered. He zoomed down the track, leaned at the finish line and stared at the video board for what seemed like forever, praying he had done enough to win his first career Olympic gold medal.

He had … by less than a blink of an eye.

Lyles secured the U.S.'s first gold medal in the men’s 100 in 20 years, streaking across the finish line in a personal-best 9.79 seconds. Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson finished second, an agonizingly close five-thousandths of a second behind the American.

Fred Kerley of the U.S. earned a bronze medal by running a season-best 9.81 seconds. The eight men who ran the final finished within 12 one-hundredths of a second of each other. Lyles won because, as Olympic rules state, his torso crossed the finish line first.

"When I saw my name, I was like I didn’t do this against a slow field," Lyles said. "I did this against the best of the best, on the biggest stage, with the biggest pressure."

If he's being honest, Lyles didn't think he won when he crossed the finish line. He remembers thinking, "Oh man, I really have to swallow my pride."

As they waited for the video board to reveal the winner, Lyles told Thompson, "Kishane, you got it."

"Nah, I'm not sure," the young Jamaican responded.

Thompson knew he cleared the runners on both sides of him, but he wasn't sure about Lyles in Lane 7.

"It was that close," Thompson said.

2024 Paris Olympics: USA's Noah Lyles wins 100-meter gold in thrilling photo finish (1)

When Lyles finally saw confirmation that he had won pop up on the videoboard, he ripped off his bib and held up his name for the world to see. Then he circled the track, draped in an American flag, looking for familiar faces to hug.

Nearly as elated as Lyles was Brauman, his longtime coach. He didn't even realize Lyles had shaved two-hundredths of a second off his personal-best time until somebody told him later.

"That was a pretty damn close race, right?" Brauman said. "That will go down as the closest final in the history of the Olympic Games."

Lyles’ first Olympic gold medal is a big step toward him seeing a return on his conscious effort to go from Olympian to icon, from track-famous to famous-famous. To achieve mainstream status in his sport, the bar is impossibly high. It isn’t enough to have broken Michael Johnson’s American record in the 200 two years ago, nor to have pulled off the sprint treble at World Championships last August.

Lyles needs to excel in the one place that matters most to American viewers. Fair or not, Lyles has to follow in the footsteps of a Bolt, a Simone Biles, a Michael Phelps. He has to pile up gold medals, world records and heroic feats on an Olympic stage.

That Lyles summoned the speed to capture Olympic gold in the 100 is a massively encouraging sign for the rest of his Paris campaign. The 200 is Lyles’ specialty, his first love, the event that maximizes his talents. He holds his speed as well as any sprinter since Bolt, typically enabling him to swallow up anyone in front of him as he rounds the curve and streaks toward the finish line.

The 100 is Lyles’ “side chick,” as he has put it, the event that doesn’t come naturally to him but that he has worked tirelessly to master. Aware that he struggles to accelerate out of the blocks as quickly as other world-class sprinters, Lyles has tinkered endlessly with his start. The mission has been to find a way to remain in contact at 30 meters without sacrificing Lyles’ ability to reach maximum speed and sustain it.

2024 Paris Olympics: USA's Noah Lyles wins 100-meter gold in thrilling photo finish (2)

In his 100 prelim on Saturday morning, Lyles started sluggishly and had to dig just to rally for second place behind reigning NCAA champion Louie Hinchcliffe of Great Britain. He claimed that he expected the rest of the field to “fall in line” behind him and that he wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating his adversaries again.

“What time do you think you have to run to win the gold medal?” a reporter asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to run it,” Lyles deadpanned.

Lyles ran faster in Sunday night’s first semifinal, but again he crossed the finish line in second place. Jamaica’s Oblique Seville ran a personal-best 9.81 seconds and edged Lyles by two-hundredths of a second, looking to his left at the American at the end of the race as if to say, “Where are you?”

Three years ago, during the last Olympic cycle, Lyles proved unready to seize his moment. Maybe it was the lack of crowds to draw energy from during COVID times. Maybe it was an ill-timed knee injury that interrupted his training. Maybe it was something else.

Whatever the reason, Lyles failed to qualify for Tokyo in the 100. Then he settled for a bronze in his signature 200 when Canada’s Andre De Grasse and fellow American Kenny Bednarek overtook him late in the Olympic final.

Lyles called his bronze medal “boring” in Tokyo. He carried it around in Paris because the sight of it motivates him.

“I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, I think I’m doing enough,” Lyles said at Olympic Trials. "Then I turn around and look at the medal — ‘All right, back to work.’”

No longer is it the only Olympic medal he has. After backing up his big talk, Lyles at last has the gold medal that he craved.

2024 Paris Olympics: USA's Noah Lyles wins 100-meter gold in thrilling photo finish (2024)

FAQs

2024 Paris Olympics: USA's Noah Lyles wins 100-meter gold in thrilling photo finish? ›

American sprinter Noah Lyles won the gold in the 100 meters at the Paris Olympics in a photo finish, edging out Jamaican Kishane Thompson for gold and taking the title of the world's fastest man. Lyles finished in 9.79 seconds -- officially 9.784 -- edging out Thompson by just .005 seconds for the gold.

How did Noah Lyles win 100m? ›

It was the finest margins which determined the outcome, as Lyles covered the distance between 80-90 metres in 0.84 and the final 10 metres in 0.86 - compared to 0.85 and 0.87 for Thompson. "I did think [Thompson] had it at the end.

Is Noah Lyles faster than Usain Bolt? ›

Noah Lyles became the “world's fastest man” when he won the 100 meters at the Paris Olympics on Sunday. But the American sprinter's time of 9.79 seconds fell short of the world record of 9.58 set by Usain Bolt of Jamaica 15 years ago.

What is the fastest 100-meter dash in the Olympics? ›

SAINT-DENIS, France — Noah Lyles is the fastest man in the world. The U.S. sprinter won the 100 at the Paris Olympics. Lyles crossed the finish line with a gold-medal winning time of 9.79 (.784) in a photo finish to win track and field's marquee sprint event.

Who is the best 100m sprinter in the world? ›

USA's Noah Lyles is crowned the fastest man in the world at the Stade de France in Paris. The American edges Jamaica's Kishane Thompson in a photo finish to the men's 100-metre race. Both finished with a time of 9.79 seconds but were separated by 5/1,000th of a second in the end.

Who is the fastest human male? ›

Usain Bolt is still the world's all-time fastest man with his blazing 100-meter dash record.

Is Noah Lyles related to Snoop Dogg? ›

Lyles and Snoop have no real ties, at least not at first glance, and he is not the rapper's "nephew," at least not in the literal sense (more on that later). However, Snoop is a noted sports enthusiast, having graced a number of sporting surfaces, from the football field to the safe haven of the hardwood.

How fast is Usain Bolt? ›

Usain Bolt 100-meter dash records

Bolt holds the all-time 100-meter dash record of 9.58 seconds, set in 2009, and he holds the Olympic record of 9.63 seconds set in 2012.

How fast did Noah Lyles run in mph? ›

Crucially, though, Lyles was now travelling towards the finish line quicker than anyone else. Between 50m and 60m he made a rapid, stunning climb from eighth to third as he reached his peak speed of the race, 43.6km/hr (27.1mph).

Is Usain Bolt still the fastest person in the world? ›

Bolt is still far and away the fastest man the world has ever seen, but Lyles has made a name for himself on the world stage, particularly in the 200-meter sprint. In 2023, Lyles won the gold medal in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 4x100-meter events at the World Championships.

Who won gold in Mens 100? ›

Noah Lyles beat Jamaica's Kishane Thompson by five-thousandths of a second to win Olympic gold in a stunning men's 100m final.

How is the winner of the 100m decided? ›

NBC Olympics reported that per the official rules and regulations for track and field events, “the first athlete whose torso (as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the closest edge of the finish line is the winner.”

What determines the winner in a photo finish? ›

"As the runners approach the finish line, a 'slit-video' system scans an ultra-thin segment of the track precisely aligned with the finish line — scans it 2,000 times per second, providing an unbroken image of each athlete crossing the line — and coordinates it with the athlete's time."

How is 100m photo finish determined? ›

For timekeepers and judges of events like track and field, it's a pretty simple answer: the front of the chest determines who gets the nod in a photo finish. Not the head, and not the lower body. If you look at the photo below, you can clearly see Lyles, third from the bottom, has his torso ahead of everyone else's.

Did Noah win the 100m? ›

American sprinter Noah Lyles celebrates after winning the gold medal in in the men's 100-meters final at the Paris Olympics on Sunday in Saint-Denis, France. NPR is in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics. For more of our coverage from the games head to our latest updates.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Maia Crooks Jr

Last Updated:

Views: 6191

Rating: 4.2 / 5 (43 voted)

Reviews: 82% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Maia Crooks Jr

Birthday: 1997-09-21

Address: 93119 Joseph Street, Peggyfurt, NC 11582

Phone: +2983088926881

Job: Principal Design Liaison

Hobby: Web surfing, Skiing, role-playing games, Sketching, Polo, Sewing, Genealogy

Introduction: My name is Maia Crooks Jr, I am a homely, joyous, shiny, successful, hilarious, thoughtful, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.