Who after Usain Bolt? Noah Lyles sprints and trash-talks his way to 100m gold that has grabbed the world’s attention

Bolt was a tough act to follow, so Noah Lyles, an American who fears nothing and is reverential to no other sports being, decided to become a sensation by barely winning. The nonstop chatterbox, trailed the 8-man race for all save 0.004 seconds, the eventual margin of his photo finish victory over Kishane Thompson, a brooding Jamaican who also clicked 9.79. It was the absolute antithesis of Bolt’s dominant strides, as Lyles won despite his silver medallist fitting in the same vertical frame as him. Except Lyles was technical enough to lean his torso forward while Thompson whose boot might have grazed the white chalk earlier, but the rules dictated that the body arc needed to cross the imaginary ribbon.

That figure of 9.79 is sorely defiled since Seoul 1988 when Ben Johnson ran in, all juiced up, as was later revealed. Lyles came along at a time when technology spits out 40,000 images per second that determined the dip of the gold wearing torso.

The race itself was outrageous, not because it threw up an Olympic record. But because all 8 finished under 9.91 seconds, including 5th placed JL Marcell, who pulled his hamstring but still packed that in inside 9.85 seconds.

Saint-Denis: Saint-Denis: Noah Lyles of the United States celebrates after winning the gold medal in in the men’s 100 meters final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Saint-Denis, France, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (PTI Photo/Ravi Choudhary)

At 50 metres, Lyles was literally joint last at 5.61 seconds. He had been uniquely last at 40 metres, on 4.76 seconds. Between the 50 metres and 60 metres, Lyles went from 7th place to 3rd. Thompson had led from 30 metres onwards, his imposing form stomping forth looking a lock in for gold.

Lyles took 2nd position at 90 metres, and that’s when the second American Fred Kerley, who reckoned he must be the Stars & Stripes hero to challenge Thompson for gold, wouldn’t know what hit him. Lyles had caught up with him at 80 metres, and relegated him to bronze at the finish, with an acceleration that was gobsmacking. It wasn’t the fastest race, it was the tightest yet.

Lyles didn’t stop at the finish line. At the press conference thereafter, he told his compatriot Kerley he would crumble him at halfway, on the turn of the 200m in upcoming days. Kerley wasn’t the first American who Lyles had trash-talked to while being entirely serious about it.

Lyles had won the last World Championships at Budapest, and trolled American sporting royalty. In his inimitable fashion, he wondered why the NBA legends wore Championships rings and called themselves ‘World champions’, when it was frankly a domestic league. His cackling and taunting extended to baseball and American football, all self sufficient multi million dollar franchise leagues, while the hardworking Noah, actually busted his lungs to win a world title, but didn’t get noticed. It wasn’t a pleading rant, he laughed uproariously at NBA’s audacity to call their ball game a world winning thing. Only an American could have seen the bleeding absurdity of it, and joked and jabbered on it, with global media watching.

Usain Bolt will be a T&F GOAT. But only a Noah Lyles could clock 9.79 alongside another fellow, and still pip him to gold, after declaring America’s most popular sporting icons were ‘meh’. At Paris Noah Lyles didn’t walk the talk. He sprinted it in 9.79 by a chuckling 0.004 margin.