Lyles wins gold for U.S. in 100m by .005 seconds

SAINT-DENIS, France — Since last August, Noah Lyles has stood firm and unequivocal in his belief that the title of “world’s fastest man” belongs to him.

On Sunday night at the Stade de France, he proved it.

With a personal-best 9.784-second time that edged him past a world-class field full of elite sprinters, Lyles walked away with his first Olympic gold medal in the 100-meter final.

He earned the victory by beating the man with the world’s fastest time this year, Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, by 0.005 of a second.

“We were waiting for the names to pop up, and I’m going to be honest, I came over [to Thompson] and I was like: ‘I think you got that one, big dawg!'” Lyles said in his postrace news conference. “Something said I need to lean, and I was like, ‘I’m going to lean,’ because it’s that type of race.”

It was the closest 100-meter final since at least Moscow in 1980 — or perhaps ever. Back then, Great Britain’s Allan Wells narrowly beat Silvio Leonard in 10.25 seconds in an era when timing didn’t go down to the thousandths of a second.

According to Omega, the official timekeeper of all Olympics events, at the 65.15-meter mark, Lyles hit his peak speed, and he was trailing at that point. That peak reached 43.6 km/h or 27.1 mph, and he maintained that rate the rest of the race.

“What’s crazy is my [biomechanist] Ralph Mann, before I left for Paris, he’s like, ‘This is how close first and second is going to be away from each other,'” Lyles said, holding his hand up with a narrow space between his index finger and thumb. “I can’t believe how right he was.”

Lyles is the first American to win the celebrated race since Justin Gatlin in 2004.

If Lyles makes the 200-meter finals Wednesday night, he’ll have an opportunity to claim a second gold medal.

Lyles’ only other Olympic medal is a bronze, which he earned in the 200 at the Tokyo Games three years ago.

Sunday’s 100-meter final included the defending Olympic gold medalist at the distance, Marcell Jacobs of Italy; Thompson, the Jamaican who entered with the world’s fastest time this year (9.77); and two of Lyles’ American teammates, Kenny Bednarek and Fred Kerley.

Kerley came in third, earning bronze in 9.81 seconds. Bednarek finished seventh, with a time of 9.88 seconds.

Thompson’s time in the final was only 0.02 of a second slower than what he posted at Jamaican trials earlier this summer. That blistering 9.77-second showing seemed a clear indication he would end up on the podium in Paris.

“I’m going to be disappointed, but I’m super happy and grateful at the same time,” Thompson said. “I just got to take it as what it is and just move forward from here.”

It appeared Thompson was leading for much of the sprint, until Lyles bolted in across the final 10 meters. Even then, it seemed evident the race was heading toward a thrilling photo finish.

“I wasn’t patient enough with my speed myself,” Thompson said.

During the semifinal round an hour and a half earlier, Team Jamaica appeared to put the rest of the runners on notice. Thompson’s 9.80 semifinal sprint was the fastest of the round. Just behind him in a personal-record 9.81 seconds was fellow Jamaican Oblique Seville, who ran in a separate heat that included Lyles.

Seville had history with Lyles, having faced him in the Bahamas in June. Seville won it, sneaking just past Lyles in 9.82 seconds. Lyles finished 0.03 of a second later.

“Going to Jamaica and getting beat by Oblique, and still saying I ran .85, and I’m still constantly moving forward and moving forward,” Lyles 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.”

It was after Lyles won the 100-meter world championship in Budapest, Hungary, last August when he began leaning into the “world’s fastest man” nickname.

“Everybody knows that the title goes to the Olympic champion, and the world champion,” Lyles said last week. “Which, I am one of … and soon to be another one of.”

Those words proved to be prophetic.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.