PARIS – Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson stood in the entry and bellowed, then clapped his hands twice.
The American Noah Lyles bounded onto the track. Showman? Or too amped up for the moment? Before the start, he kept talking to himself. The NBC cameras focused on him and, in the stands, his mother, Keisha Caine Bishop.
Some moments passed. A lot of nervous energy. So much nervous energy. Lyles jumped, in front of the blocks. Thompson turned around to take a look at the stands, then pointed down the track.
Here, in the pause before the gun goes off, is always one of the defining moments of any Olympic Games. Everywhere in our world, kids do some version of this – race ya.
The fastest man in the world, by five-thousandths of a second, Noah Lyles, jubilant in victory // World Athletics
Every number of years, this most elemental thing, let’s race, comes to supreme fruition, the hopes and dreams of kids everywhere coiled into the explosive energy of the 100 meters at the Olympics.
The night before, in the rain, Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia had won the women’s 100. She ran with strength and composure. Sha’Carri Richardson of the United States took second. You could see in Richardson’s eyes when she was introduced that the moment was – too much. Not for Alfred, now winner of Saint Lucia’s first-ever medal. Of any color.
Now, on a beautiful night in Paris, 72 degrees, no rain, a very slight tailwind at their backs, it was time for the men.
Who would be the guy?
There can only be one fastest man in the world.
Other races, other events, surely command attention. But it is the men’s 100 that produced track and field’s biggest name, Usain Bolt. It is the men’s 100 for which the stadium went dark Sunday night. The crowd went ooh and ahh for a light show.
Then the bright lights came back up.
All eight guys settled into the blocks.
And on this Sunday night, Noah Lyles would silence – after one of the great hype campaigns in American history – every critic.
By five-thousandths of a second.
Lyles had won the 100 last summer at the world championships in Budapest.
Thompson had emerged this spring and summer as the who-is-this-guy rival from Jamaica.
They crossed in 9.79.
Both of them.
The electronic timer, though, goes out to thousandths.
It put Lyles, in Lane 7, at .784.
Thompson, Lane 4, .789.
The American Fred Kerley, who took second in Tokyo three years ago behind Italy’s Marcell Jacobs, crossed third here Sunday, in 9.81.
South Africa’s Akani Simbine was fourth, 9.82; Jacobs next, 9.85. The race was so fast that Jamaica’s Oblique Seville finished last, eighth, in 9.91.
World Athletics said it was the first time ever eight men had broken 10 seconds in a wind-legal race.
It also marked the first time the United States won this Olympic men’s 100 in 20 years, since Justin Gatlin, in Athens.
It also marked the first time the Americans put two guys into a top three in a men’s Olympic 100 since Athens.
For the first time, eight men broke 10 seconds in a wind-legal race.
Lyles’ 9.79 is the fastest, by a tick, he has ever run a 100.
He did it in – for him – classic fashion.
Lyles has to make up for a relatively poor start with a devastating close. At 10 meters, Lyles was eighth, dead last. By 50 meters, halfway through the race, he was seventh.
At 60, he was third.
At 90, he had closed to second – just one-hundredth of a second behind Thompson, who had been in front of the race from the 30-meter mark on.
The numbers tell the story of this race // World Athletics
Track and field is about numbers mixed with raw emotion. Here the numbers are simply fascinating.
At 90 meters, Thompson was 8.92, Lyles 8.93.
The oh-so-slight difference in the last two 10-meter splits. Lyles ran .84 and .86. Thompson,.85 and .87
At 100, both hit 9.79, that mere five-thousandths apart.
The official photo finish // Omega Timing // World Athletics
After they crossed, both had to wait a moment or two for the electronics to say who would be – the guy.
When it was shown to be Lyles, he pulled a Michael Phelps from the Water Cube in Beijing in 2008.
In the same way that Phelps found his mother, Debbie, in the stands, Noah Lyles found his mom in the seats.
“You did it,” she told him as he fell into her embrace.
“I’m so proud,” she said, and no matter that Noah Lyles is now the guy, had made clear the doubters had nothing left to chirp about, isn’t that really and truly the thing every guy, big or small, wants his mom to tell him at his very best moment?