Photo finish as .005 of a second clinches gold medal for US megastar Noah Lyles in pulsating 100m final
Updated . First published at
PARIS: US sprinting megastar Noah Lyles clinched Olympic gold in the men's 100m dash by just .005 of a second in an extraordinary photo finish.
The reigning 100m world champion got his hands on Olympic gold with a blistering run of 9.79 seconds at the Stade de France on Monday morning (AEST).
Lyles clocked 9.79 (.784) to beat Jamaican Kishane Thompson by five thousandths of a second in Paris, as 2022 world champion Fred Kerley, another US superstar, claimed bronze in 9.81 on the purple track.
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When the times first flashed up on the giant screen, beside the names of both Lyles and Thompson was 9.79.
The top two finishers had to wait an agonising 28 seconds after rocketing over the finish line to find out who'd be standing atop the dais.
The photo finish of the Paris 2024 men's 100m final. Michael Reaves/Getty Images
When the screen flickered to reveal Lyles had pipped his rival, the biggest star of the new Netflix series Sprint looked down the barrel of a broadcast camera and gestured as if to say, "I am the man".
Moments later, the 27-year-old from Virginia had the US flag draped around him as he pounced around the track in front of an electric 75,000-strong crowd.
"There was a lot of doubt, I am not going to lie," Lyles told Nine trackside.
"I thought I didn't out-dip Kishane there, I thought he out-dipped me. To be honest, when we crossed the line I went up to him and I said, 'Hey, man, I think you got that one', and when it came out I thought, 'Oh my gosh, I am amazing'."
Noah Lyles celebrates his pulsating win. Getty Images
Lyles and Botswana's Letsile Tebogo were the slowest out of the blocks, recording reaction times of .178 of a second.
But Lyles, racing in lane seven, powered through the field with blistering speed and edged Thompson, who had lane four, with a dip at the line.
Thompson had headed into the final as the fastest man in the world this year, and he can still lay claim to that, having blasted out a 9.77 to capture Jamaica's national title in June, but the Caribbean speedster fell excruciatingly short in the race that really counted.
Amid Lyles' wild celebration came the ringing of the giant bell, which the ecstatic speed demon dinged repeatedly. Paris Games organisers introduced a nice touch where every gold medallist in rugby sevens and athletics at these Games would ring the big bell, situated just off the Olympic track. Lyles' rendition was always going to top them all.
The world's fastest man still has the 200m and 4x100m relay events to come at these Games.
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