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By Jon Paul Hoornstra
Contributing Sports Writer
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Team USA's Noah Lyles beat Jamaica's Kishane Thompson in a photo finish at the 100-meter final to claim a historic gold medal Sunday at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The difference between first and second place: .005 seconds.
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"America — I told you — I got this," Lyles said to the camera after watching a replay of his victory inside Paris' Stade de France.
In the semifinals, Thompson and Jamaican teammate Oblique Seville had the fastest times in their individual heats, finishing the event in 9.80 and 9.81 seconds, respectively. Lyles finished behind the pair, in 9.83.
Lyles, running third from the outside in Lane 7, was perhaps invisible to Thompson, running third from the inside in Lane 4, as Lyles leaned his head over the finish line for gold.
American Fred Kerley captured the bronze medal, running the final in 9.81 seconds. Team USA's Kenneth Bednarek finished seventh, in 9.88 seconds.
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Thompson was competing in his first Olympic Games. His initial reaction was one of celebration, then confusion, as he looked skyward with the rest of the crowd to watch the video replay.
Thompson ran up front for the majority of the race, only to get edged out by Lyles in the slimmest of margins at the finish line.
Lyles won the bronze in the men's 200-meter final at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. He was outspoken in his lust for gold in Paris, at one point comparing an NBA championship unfavorably to finishing first in a track and field event.
"You know the thing that hurts me the most is that I have to watch the NBA Finals and they have 'world champion' on their head," Lyles said last year. "World champion of what? The United States? Don't get me wrong, I love the U.S. at times, but that ain't the world. That is not the world. We are the world. We have almost every country out here thriving, putting on their flag to show they are represented. There ain't no flags in the NBA."
Lyles talked a big game. Sunday, he backed it up.
His 9.78-second time in Sunday's final was also a personal best, beating the mark he set last year in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. Lyles captured the 100-meter gold and set his previous personal best in the final in 9.83 seconds.
The United States had not won gold in the men's 100-meter event since Justin Gatlin at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Lyles, 27, was born in Gainesville, Florida, and raised in Alexandria, Virginia.
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