Noah Lyles’ “dream goal” for the Paris Olympics was to break the world record in the 200M, but plans don’t always work out how you hope.
Four days after winning the United States’ first gold medal in the men’s 100m since 2004, Lyles took the track to accomplish a feat last done by Carl Lewis in 1984: winning both the 100m and 200m representing the Stars and Stripes.
Lyles entered the Paris track as the overwhelming favorite in, by far, his best event as a three-time world champion (2019, 2022, 2023). However, he was never able to recover from a rough start and had to settle for bronze.
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Lyles crossed the line at 19.70, nearly a quarter-second off gold-medal winner Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, and 0.39 seconds off his own personal best.
After the race, Lyles needed to be tended to by medical staff. He was seen wearing a mask on Wednesday and before the race on Thursday. NBC then announced that Lyles had tested positive for COVID-19 two days earlier, finding out from his “distraught” mother. USA Track and Field confirmed the positive case to the BBC. He is also asthmatic.
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Lyles’ reaction time of 0.173 was the slowest of the eight runners in the race. He was tied for the slowest reaction time in the men’s 100m, as well, but he still managed to pull off a personal best of 9.79, winning by five-thousandths of a second. Of course, that was before he was sick.
Lyles also settled for bronze in Tokyo. American Kenny Bednarek earned his second-straight silver medal in the event.
Nonetheless, Lyles doubled his total Olympic medal count with the race – he now has three in total.
Depending on his health, the 27-year-old now figures to turn his attention toward the men’s 4×100 meter relay. Lyles did not run in the preliminaries on Thursday morning, likely to conserve any energy for the 200m.
With the new COVID-19 diagnoses, it remains to be seen whether he will run in the final. He was a part of the world championship team last year in Budapest.
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