Noah Lyles won his first Olympic medal Sunday , defeating Jamaica's Kishane Thompson by the slimmest of margins in the men's 100-meter finals in what is considered to be one of the closest finishes in history .
After coming off the blocks slowly, Lyles found himself in the back of the pack, with his chances of winning a medal , let alone the gold, slipping away with every meter passed. The 27-year-old's prospects of winning a medal were so slim that data from the race concluded that at 30 meters, Lyles was the slowest runner in the field.
In the final 70 meters of the race, however, something clicked for the American. Sprinting past his opponents, Lyles caught up to Thompson, who at that point had been leading the race, and leaned his torso forward, ahead of the Jamaican star's legs.
READ MORE: Noah Lyles wins 100m: Incredible photos tell story of dramatic Olympics race
READ MORE: Noah Lyles receives the ultimate compliment after winning 100m gold
Once both men were through the finish line, Lyles and Thompson took a moment to share some words with one another. As officials reviewed the race results, many believed Thompson had claimed gold - including the American himself - with Lyles at least taking bronze.
"To be honest, I didn’t know if I had it. I leaned but I didn’t know I had it," Lyles told Jamaican broadcaster SportsMax TV after the race . "Me and Kishane were at the end waiting for our names to come up and I came back and I said, ‘I’ll be honest, man, I think you got that one.'"
After a brief review, it was determined that Lyles was the winner , with his torso crossing the line before Thompson's. Not only was the race difficult to determine in real-time, but officials needed to look at multiple angles to determine that Lyles' torso crossed the finish line first.
By the end of the review period, it was noted that Lyles was about 5,000ths of a second faster than Thompson, in what is one of the closest finishes in the Olympics history. And while Lyles has every right to be celebratory about his win, his partner, Junelle Bromfield has him beat .
The 26-year-old Bromfield, a track star for Jamaica, won a bronze medal during the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The two first met in 2017, though Lyles admitted to the " Fast Lane Lifestyle " podcast that when the couple first had their first date, it "just didn't click."
"It was like, 'No, let's just be friends," Lyles said at the time [ h/t NBC.com ]. "We both knew that we liked each other, but she could never get a day off from MVP [Track Club] to come visit."
The two went their separate ways before reconvening in 2021 in Tokyo. It was there that Bromfield won a bronze medal for Jamaica in the 4x400-meter relay.
After the two reconnected in Japan, Lyles and Bromfield even began dating. Despite competing at the highest level, the two keep their sports lives separate from the life they have together.
“Even before we started dating, we had a good balance,” the American said. “We’d show up to quite a few track meets that we were both at, and we weren’t dating at the time, but nobody would know that we knew each other. ... We have that mental space to be able to share with each other and continuously feed to each other."
Most Popular
Comments / 0