Noah Lyles lives up to his own hype to herald the dawn of a new sprint supremacy

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For Noah Lyles, a masterplan three years in the making came down to five-thousandths of a second. This shamelessly extravagant showman, the self-appointed heir to Usain Bolt, is the Olympic 100m champion after one of the tensest, tightest finals ever seen. 
Just 12 hundredths separated first from seventh, but in the end the glittering lights of the Stade de France flashed in the red, white and blue of the United States, just as he had envisaged it. It is becoming a custom at these Olympics for athletics champions to mark their triumphs by ringing a giant bell. Lyles, rest assured, rang it for all it was worth, as if to herald the dawn of his sprint supremacy.
The winning time, 9.79 seconds, was the fastest of his life. Naturally, it paled against the 9.69 and 9.64 that Bolt ran in the first two of his three Olympic finals, but this was beside the point: Lyles had chosen these Paris Games as his moment to become an icon, and he delivered. 
NOAH LYLES wins GOLD in the 100m final! 🥇⚡Could it have been any closer?! 🤯 #BBCOlympics #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/TaIgfk23rm
Bounding halfway down the back straight as soon as his name was announced, waggling his fingers frenziedly in the warm-up, you feared he would burn himself out before the starting gun. But he screened out all the diversions – the Jamaican threat, the ominous countdown music, the interminable hold in the blocks – to produce his finest race under the greatest strain. “This is the one I wanted,” he said. “I’m the wolf among wolves.”
Sometimes Lyles’ braggadocio can grate. Sometimes his habit of asking his every move to be documented by a Netflix crew can smack of a man with a Messiah complex. Now, though, he can serve up the ultimate rebuke to his critics: a first Olympic gold medal, and the undisputed status as the fastest man in the world. 
It was far too close for comfort, with Lyles and Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson dipping for the line in a photo finish. But the American, who takes hubris to levels at which even Bolt might have blushed, will not care one iota. His quest to be the dominant track star of his generation is proceeding exactly to plan.
It was Lyles’ sheer composure that told in the end. Where Thompson, just 23, faltered over the final strides, Lyles, with six world golds already banked, hit a top speed with which nobody could live. Although he left it late – as he always does in the 100, not his specialist event – he ultimately timed his surge to perfection. Draping himself in the Stars and Stripes, he posed for the cameras as though taunting his detractors. At last, he has the prize to demonstrate why he turns up to press conferences declaring: “The champ is here!”
While Lyles might not be to everybody’s taste, with his ostentatious nail art and his penchant for wearing a cap that says “Made It” under the peak, he is essential for his sport. He is the most charismatic figure in this field by a distance, never passing up the chance to talk up his credentials as a saviour. 
Thompson, by contrast, is young and unused to such intensity of scrutiny: after one of his heats here, he refused interviews and instead fist-bumped every interviewer with the words “one love”. Each to his own, but Lyles understands the game. He recognises that in this of all events, the personality matters as much as the sport, and he is only too happy to fill the void.
Lyles said he knew this final would be resolved by the most slender margins. “A guy in biomechanics came down before I came down and said, ‘It’s going to be this much, that’s how close it’s going to be.’ And, gosh, he was right. I came with aggression, but after that 9.83 in the semi-final I was done with aggression. My sports therapist told me, ‘You need to let go, you’re holding on. Let go and release it.’”
He can be a bundle of contradictions. For all the self-aggrandisement, he has spoken openly of his struggles with depression and has brought no fewer than three therapists with him to Paris. With his fame having grown hugely through his Netflix exposure, he has been besieged by selfie-chasers at the athletes’ village. At times, he said, he has even needed to find quiet corners of the cafeteria with his girlfriend, the Jamaican sprinter Junelle Bromfield, to collect his thoughts. But after this crowning glory, he will bask in the glow to his heart’s content.
It was a luminously high-quality final, with Louie Hinchliffe the first 100m semi-finalist in Olympic history to run under 10 seconds without making the cut. The duel had been drawn, as Lyles and Oblique Seville stared each other down over the final strides. 
Athletics needed a final like this, frankly, and it needed a champion like Lyles. The spectacle formed the sharpest contrast to the tumbleweed version in Tokyo three years ago, when Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs, a self-styled “crazy long jumper”, bolted from obscurity to claim the crowd. This time, there was both a passionate crowd and a winner worthy of the occasion.
Lyles, you sense, is only just starting in his bid to colonise the headlines. As a 200m specialist, it is his abiding mission to hunt down Bolt’s world record of 19.19. For now, though, the 100m title, the most precious of all in Olympic sport, is his. “I hope you guys like Noah,” he grinned, “because I got a lot more coming.”
I am a bit disappointed, but I am happy at the same time. I wasn’t patient enough with myself to let my speed bring me at the line, in the position that I know I could have gone to, but I have learnt from it.
I know that Jamaica would have wanted me to get the gold, everybody love winners. I would have loved to win today, but big up to the whole field.
Absolutely [the best 100m final I have seen] bar none. It was so open, there were so many great athletes.
It lived up to it, we had this amazing race where you could throw a blanket over the finishing line. We didn’t even know who won for a few minutes.
The image shows that Lyles was eighth and last after 40m, made up five places by 60m and and was ahead only on the finish line.
Thompson led from 30m and lost it on the line. Kerley had silver up to 80m before Lyle’s storming finish. 
You couldn’t have asked for a bigger moment. A guy in biomechanics comes down and before I came out here, he said it was going to be this much, that’s how close it is going to be and gosh was he right.
I had to take every round as it was and I was a little upset after the first round so I came with the aggression and after I ran that 83 and I was done with the aggression. My sports therapist told me you need to let go, you’re holding on. Let go and release it.
In June, Seville beat Lyles during the 100m in the Racers Grand Prix held in Kingston, Jamaica. Seville stared down Lyles at the finish line as they crossed.
Lyles then posted this:
Oh yah… I’ll remember this! See you in Paris @ObliqueSeville pic.twitter.com/cvOt5gktPG
NOAH LYLES wins GOLD in the 100m final! 🥇⚡Could it have been any closer?! 🤯 #BBCOlympics #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/TaIgfk23rm
“I’m proud of you,” she says to him. Well, quite. 
He said he was coming to build a legacy and to win three gold medals. Plenty of schadenfreude was waiting for him but he backed up his braggadocio. 
It was a world record time for fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth places. 
Lyles, Simbine and Jacobs (the defending champions) all ran personal bests. 
Amazing catch-up by Lyles after Thompson perhaps became preoccupied with Kerley outside him. He wins by five-thousandths of a second. 
That’s one of the closest finals we’ve seen, 12 hundredths of a second between first and last place. 
He somehow made it from fourth to first in the last 20m and both men reciorded 9.79:
After being held on the start line for a good two minutes longer than necessary. Too long a build-up. The sprinters are getting frustrated as we wait for the music to end. Is that the reason for the delay? Blimey. Into the blocks at last. 
Thompson starts like a train but Lyles powers through at the end to make it look like a dead heat. Photo finish. Oddly Seville was a victim of nominative determinism and leant back at the finish which cost him a number of places. 
Thompson had that won but seemed to think he only had to beat Kerley and hadn’t bargained for Lyles’ explosive finish. 
Here come the light-up wristbands, after a brief appearance from the DJ Kavinsky, who I last saw at a festival in Barcelona 12 years ago at an irresponsible time in the morning. Time has not been kind to either of our hair colours. It is a very excitable entry to the track from Lyles, who comes running out to around the 20m mark to demonstrate just how pumped he is. He calls it “main character energy”. That’s one way to describe it.  
Comes out with his arms crossed like a West Ham fan then yells and enacts the moment Dr David Banner turns into the Hulk. Noah Lyles also roars and then bounces 30m up the track, pogoing away and shouting ‘Yeah!’ 
Kenny Bednarek jumped the gun… on his entrance. Hopefully for the last time tonight. 
To soundtrack the light show at Stade de France. Enjoyin the lights racing up the purple 100m straight. 
‘The time is now,’ he says. And we see footage of The Fastest Men on the Planet™ played to a shonky cover version of Time After Time. 
Michael Johnson goes for Thompson, Jess Ennis-Hill exposes herself to splinters and says Jamaica and Denise Lewis splits the difference and plumps for Oblique (/) Seville. 
Just skimming through the exchanges and it appears that Kishane Thompson is the overwhelming favourite now at a best priced 4-6. Noah Lyles, favourite yesterday, is now as long as 5-2 and Oblique Seville is 14-1. 
Thompson is 23, ran his PB, 9.77sec, in the Jamaica trials and has been tipped all week by Usain Bolt to win for the Rock. 
2. Kenny Bednarek (USA)
3. Fred Kerley (USA)
4. Kishane Thompson (Jamaica)
5. Akani Simbine (South Africa)
6. Oblique Seville (Jamaica)
7. Noah Lyles (USA)
8. Letslie Tebogo (Botswana)
9. Marcell Jacobs (Italy)
You can follow all the action from the track and field with Richard Aikman over here. 
(They don’t use lane one in the final)
 
Wor Zharnel never looked in contention there, unfortunately. Must be a desperate situation dropping into the 5th-6th range in a 100m race, knowing you’ve reached your top speed and those in front are pulling further ahead. That’s how it looked from the press seats and judging from the look on Hughes’ face it was not any prettier on the track. So no British competitor in the final which is not a huge shock but certainly a small shame.
Obviously I’m disappointed but I know where I’m coming from. It’s just my third hundred [since his injury]. No excuses but it’s not my day. Trying to get through with a grade two tear in my hamstring just last month, I dug deep but it’s not my day. I will be focusing on the 200 and I’ll be fine. 
Zharnel Hughes was eliminated. Thompson won in 9.80. 
Hughes was fifth with 10.01. Richardson doesn’t make the final. 
I’ll use this experience and learn from my mistakes. Back to the drawing board and come back later next year. I let the race get too far away from me. I didn’t set myself up too good at the start. It’s not much. We can work on it. I’ve not run in front of my family for a while so it’s good to run in front of them. 
“That’s his level at the moment and he’s had a very good Olympics but there’s lots more to come.”
And both Jacobs and Bednarek beat Hinchliffe’s mark so he won’t make the final.
Equal season best for Jacobs, who nobody is seriously tipping to retain his title but has a spot in the final as it stands, depending on times from this final semi. Not seen many Italian fans here but he seems well-backed in the crowd. Pleasant for him, given he won his gold in Tokyo in front of a crowd of several hundred facemasked journalists and volunteers.
 
Noah Lyles said he would not lose again at this Olympics after Louie Hinchliffe beat him in his 100m heat earlier today. He beat Hinchliffe but the big talk didn’t get him ahead of Oblique Seville from Jamaica. Hinchliffe now has a horrible wait to see if he’s quickest to make the final. 
Intrigued to see his tight demi-mullet hairstyle, seemingly taking inspiration from style icon Bruce Foxton from the Jam. Lyles was wearing some very pretty nail varnish on the start line, which is an increasingly common sight among American athletes and surely due in the Premier League any month now. 
Hinchliffe was some way back in third with 9.97. Waiting game for him.
Seville was sharp out of the blocks and looked like he was easing up. Hinchliffe did not have the best start but powered through. Lyles looks like he might still have something in the tank, too. 
 
 
The first two qualify and the two next quickest across the three semis. 
Lyles runs his palm down his mouth when introduced. I have to admit I don’t get the reference. My first thought was something obscene but I’m not sure that’s what it was about. 
A recap of the five fastest this year
What do I admire the most? The technical expertise he has shared for 24 years but also the perspective. He is never coaxed towards hyperbole. He assesses everyone on their merits and puts their achievement into a broad global and historical context. He provides a sharp contrast with other BBC athletics experts. 
How Paris Olympics developed one of the world’s fastest tracks – using mussel shells
The Olympic record FYI is Usain Bolt’s 9.63sec from London 2012, the world record is also his, 9.58sec from the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. 
Zharnel Hughes: Flight simulator and Usain Bolt have helped my shot at Olympic glory
Hence St Lucia had to wait until tonight for this moment:
In lane order:
In lane order:
Features, in lane order
Good evening and welcome to live coverage of the men’s 100m final at 8.50pm preceded by the three semi-finals at 7.05pm to establish those who will go on to compete for the blue riband of men’s athletics, the claims of the 1,500m partisans notwithstanding. Two team GB athletes go in the semi-finals, the national record holder Zharnel Hughes is in the third having qualified 10th fastest in 10.03, three-hundredths of a second off his best for the season. Hughes won his semi-final in Tokyo in 9.98 three years ago but, you may well recall, false-started in the final from lane four and was disqualified.  
The second British semi-fnalist is Louie Hinchliffe from Sheffield who has been taken under the wing of the great Carl Lewis at the University of Houston. Hinchliffe, all but unknown until his emergence at the NCAA championships this year, is the third fastest qualifier with 9.98 in yesterday’s heats, again three-hundredths of a second off his best for the season. He has a remarkable body shape for an elite sprinter, more of a bustler than a glider, but he generates so much power and his technique is ever more refined by the month. It would be a remarkable story for him even to make the final but his form is good enough to make it a probability.
The world champion, Noah Lyles, is alongside Hinchliffe in the first semi-final and ran a personal best 9.81 only 15 days ago at London’s Olympic Stadium in the Diamond League so we shouldn’t read too much into yesterday’s 10.04. Ferdinand Omnayala of Kenya and Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson have both gone under 9.8sec this season while USA’s Fred Kerley, silver medallist in Tokyo and the quickest man in the field with a PB of 9.76, has run under 9.9sec. Defending champion, Marcell Jacobs of Italy, crept in with 10.05 but has run 9.92 this season as he makes his way back from injury.
If you are of the hat-wearing persuasion, hang on to it.