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Photo finish reveals Noah Lyles won 100-meter dash by thinnest of margins

FaceProfileby:Thomas Goldkamp•08/04/24
Noah Lyles
Photo by James Lang / USA TODAY Sports

In a finish for the ages in the 100-meter dash, America’s Noah Lyles narrowly edged out Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by five-thousandths of a second to take the gold medal.

It was as much of a photo finish as there’s been in the Olympics in years. And even with the photo, it’s somewhat hard to determine the winner at the finish.

Check out how close it was below.

The finish was so close that Lyles and Thompson spent an agonizingly long few seconds simply looking up at the scoreboard with their hands on their head after the race, waiting for the winner to be announced.

When Lyles learned he had won, he reacted jubilantly, bouncing up and down the track, taking his pinned USA label from the front of his jersey and holding it up to the crowd. He then turned to the camera and yelled, “America, I told you!”

Noah Lyles posted a 9.78-second time in the event to take home the gold.

He needed every bit of it, too. That was something he might not necessarily have factored in when he initially arrived in Paris, perhaps just a touch overconfident.

Lyles ran a 10.04 second time in qualifying, watching some finish ahead of him. He remarked afterward that he was surprised by the level of competition.

“These boys said they ain’t coming to play,” Lyles said, via ESPN. “And I guess that’s my first lesson in underestimating the power of an Olympics. When somebody’s on the line, they say they’re going to give it their all or nothing.

“The plan was first. But it didn’t happen. Second is fine. We’ll make sure from here on out it’s first … Now I don’t have to hold back.”

Noah Lyles certainly held nothing back in the final of the 100-meter dash, running a blazing time to secure the gold medal. Now he’ll get the chance to add to his tally by taking the 200-meter dash, an event he also had circled coming into Paris.

Lyles was the reigning 100-meter dash World Champion and took home a bronze medal in the 200-meter dash during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. He eventually won a title at the World Championships in that event in 2022 and 2023, in addition to the 100-meter dash.