Noah Lyles taken off track in wheelchair after finishing 200m in third with COVID

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When Noah Lyles woke up Tuesday morning, he knew something was wrong.

This wasn’t soreness from the 100-meter final Sunday, when he became the first Team USA member to win gold in the event in 20 years.

So he alerted the doctors. He found out about a positive COVID-19 test.

And though Lyles didn’t consider skipping the 200-meter final Thursday, the impact of the illness became evident after he settled for a bronze medal, fell to the ground in exhaustion after a time of 19.70 seconds and got pushed off in a wheelchair at Stade de France — with Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo surging past everyone to win gold at 19.46 and Team USA’s Kenny Bednarek leaving with silver at 19.62.

Lyles told reporters he experienced a sore throat, chills and aches after contracting COVID-19, and he estimated that he felt between 90 and 95 percent healthy at the time of the race.

“My first thought was not to panic, thinking I’ve been in worse situations,” Lyles told NBC, while wearing a mask, following his race. “I’ve run with worse conditions, I felt, and we just took it day by day, trying to hydrate as much. Quarantined off. I’d definitely say that it’s taken its toll for sure, but I’ve never been more proud of myself for being able to come out here and getting a bronze medal — where last Olympic I was very disappointed [with a bronze medal], and this time, I couldn’t be more proud.”

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Before the race began, Lyles jumped out of the tunnel during introductions and didn’t appear hindered by anything.

But after about 12 seconds of sprinting, Lyles was already a stride behind Tebogo, and that margin only widened across the final seconds before Tebogo, 21, crossed the finish line to secure Botswana’s first-ever Olympic gold medal.

In the moment, before NBC first reported Lyles’ COVID-19 diagnosis, the result was a bit of a shock.

This was the Team USA track star who took the 100-meter gold in a photo-finish and had a chance to etch his name next to Usain Bolt and others — including Carl Lewis as the most recent American — as runners to win both of those events in the same Olympics.

Lyles, if everything unfolded ideally, had a chance to ensure that his name belonged in any conversation discussing who was the fastest man alive.

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Tebogo finished the 200-meter semifinal heat Wednesday — the day after Lyles woke up and felt off — with the top time of 19.96, with Lyles placing second at 20.08, but it’s tough to draw any conclusions from those results.

In the 100-meter semifinal last week, Lyles fell behind and managed to crawl back for a second-place finish, getting a lesson about “underestimating the power of the Olympics,” he told reporters. Then, on Sunday, he made history in the same event.

“If I wasn’t to make it, and somebody would’ve definitely taken my spot, and that would’ve been my sign that I didn’t deserve to be in the final,” Lyles told NBC of his 200-meter semifinal.

But he did enough to qualify for the finals. Even with the illness, he did enough to turn the finals berth into a medal, the third of his Olympic career.

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In the present, Lyles’ illness created a bizarre scene along the side of the track, and it left his mother, Keisha Caine Bishop, feeling “distraught,” NBC’s Lewis Johnson said on the broadcast.

Lyles posted on his Instagram on Thursday after taking bronze in the 200-meter final, saying he believes his time in Paris is done — complicating Team USA’s plans for the 4×100-meter relay final Friday afternoon, too.

Earlier Thursday, the lineup left the semifinal with the fastest time from either heat, with Kyree King and Courtney Lindsey — both making their Olympic debuts — completing the last two legs.

Lindsey anchored Team USA in Lyles’ spot and finished with an 8.88 mark for his segment.

Both of those sprinters, according to NBC, were expected to get replaced by Lyles and Bednarek, before everything took a turn.

Lyles, in the moments immediately following his 200-meter race, didn’t know about his status for the relay final.

“I’m feeling more on the side of, you know, letting Team USA do their thing,” Lyles told NBC.

“They’ve proven with great certainty that they can handle it without me, and if that’s the case coming off today, then I’m perfectly fine saying, ‘Hey, you guys go do your thing. You guys have more than enough speed to be able to handle it. Get the gold medal.’ ”

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