USA’s Noah Lyles Wins Mens 100m Gold in Photo-Finish

Noah Lyles Getty Images

It would be fair to say that American track star Noah Lyles has reached the pinnacle of his sport – if he hadn’t spent months setting an even higher goal for himself.

The sprinter took home the gold in the men’s 100m, a first for the Florida native, at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Lyles’ win was the closest on record, as he beat his nearest competitor (Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson) by five-thousandths of a second (.005). The most recent comparable race to this year’s photo-finish came in Moscow 1980, well before times were recorded to such a granular level. Great Britain’s Allan Wells and Cuba’s Silvio Sarria both notched a time of 10.25 seconds, with Wells taking the gold.

“I did think Thompson had it at the end,” Lyles shared with reporters, about the close finish. “I went up to him when we were waiting and I said, ‘I think you got that one, big dog.’ And then my name popped up and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m amazing.’

Lyles’ win is the first time an American has taken the top prize in the race in 20 years, with the years between Justin Gatlin’s 2004 Athens win and the present filled by the indomitable run of Jamaica’s Usain Bolt. It’s that retired superstar who the press-savvy Lyles sees as his biggest competition, as he’s frequently boasted that his goal is to top the string of records set by the world’s fastest man.

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Both Bolt’s Olympic and world records in the 100m were safe on Sunday. Bolt set his Olympic record in 2012 with a time of 9.63, more than a tenth of a second faster than Lyles’ winning time of 9.79 (his personal best). Bolt’s world record is even more distant, a staggeringly fast sprint of 9.58 seconds that he set in 2009.

Lyles specializes in the 200m race, which is still to come on Tuesday. Bolt also holds the record for that competition. A gold in Lyles’ preferred event would make him the first man to take both medals since Bolt in 2016. He would be the first American to win both races since Carl Lewis in 1984.

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Bolt, for his part, thinks that Lyles may one day break his record. He told Citius Mag in March that the runner needed to work on some parts of his technique, but stopped short of drawing a road map on how to take down his record.

“I think if he corrects a few things — I won’t say — he could get better,” he said. “The possibility is there… I won’t tell you how to break the world record.”