Showman Noah Lyles the 100m show-stopper

It takes between 0.1 to 0.4 seconds for a human eye to blink. The time taken for a human heart to complete a beat is 0.8 seconds. Formula One drivers are known to have a reaction time of 0.2-0.3 seconds. On a dramatic Sunday night at Stade de France in Paris, Noah Lyles won the Olympic men’s 100m by 5000ths of a second. That is (0.005 secs) faster than the time your brain takes to process this sentence – which is 13 milliseconds, or 0.013 seconds.
Shooting and archery results are routinely determined by decimal points where a bullseye may not be enough to win you the day. Wrestlers fret over every milligram gained, footballers perfect the art of firing in perfect long balls. But there’s something about the 100m – bare, brutal, beautiful.
There’s a reason the men’s 100m final at the Olympics is revered as the creme de la creme of track and field events. It’s the ultimate expression of human athleticism, one that pits the finest fast-twitch fibres and self-belief in eight adjoining lanes, pushing their speed limits in front of an expectant, hollering world. It’s an enchanting form of sporting endeavour where legends are crafted and destinies shaped.
Noah Lyles ran the fastest he had ever run the 100m. Both the American showman and Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson were credited with 9.79 seconds, Lyles edging the race 9.784secs to Thompson’s 9.789secs after the world had watched the consistently fastest 100m ever — all eight finalists clocked sub-10secs, a first in Olympics history.
Italy’s defending champion Marcell Jacobs ran 9.85secs, his season’s best, to finish fifth. In Tokyo, that timing would have earned him a bronze. Eighth-placed Jamaican Oblique Seville clocked 9.91secs. Besides Lyles’ personal best, there were two national records and season’s best each as 0.12secs separated the first from the last.
“The deeper the field, the better I run. I know I’m going to win. Because I’m never going to break nerve,” Lyles had been quoted as saying by Time magazine ahead of the Games.
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With his unabashed showmanship to live up to, Lyles’ nerves didn’t fail him. He shot out on entry, jumped and ran deliriously for 30 metres, gestured at the crowd, preened at the cameras before settling behind the starting blocks. The antics were par for the course in an event that sorely needs a showman after Usain Bolt retired. Lyles, whose favourite event is the 200m, also believes that running the 100 will take him out of his comfort zone.
The two-minute light show that followed made the wait even more delicious. Lesser mortals can go weak in such moments, letting ‘what-ifs’ cloud their mind. The body can begin to tighten. Think of elite footballers who misfire in the penalties. Think also of Michael Jordan and ‘that’ shot which knocked out Cleveland Cavaliers in 1989. Or Abhinav Bindra hitting 10.8 on his last competition shot to win gold in 2008 Beijing. While most sports allow an athlete the time to slip in and out of the flow state, the 100m allows no such luxury. You put on the game face, bring out the bravado, and arrive at the starting blocks in the zone. And you zoom. So did the eight men. When the starter’s gun went off, they rocketed off the blocks. Lyles had the slowest start along side Letsile Tebogo — the reaction time 0.178secs.
At the 40m mark, he still trailed the leading three. Then came the explosive acceleration culminating in the final stride and dip that just got him ahead of Thompson. For a few anxious seconds, their eyes were transfixed at the giant screen, and when confirmation came, Lyles burst into a celebration typifying his aura.
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“I went up to Kishane and I was like, ‘I’m gonna be honest, I think you had that one”,” a beaming Lyles told Eurosport after the race. “I was fully prepared to see his name pop up. and to see my name pop, I’m like, ‘goodness gracious, I’m incredible’.”
Lyles may not be done yet. He arrived in Paris with his Tokyo 100m bronze, a reminder of his underachievement; a setback which he believes he can overcome only if he wins four Olympic medals (200m, 4X100m relay, and may be 4X400m relay) to set it right. Having beaten asthma, dyslexia and ADHD as a kid, winning the 100m Olympics final as a ripping 26-year-old seems like a regular day in the office.
No male track athlete has ever won that many sprint golds at one Games. Carl Lewis, Jesse Owens and Alvin Kraenzlein each won a fourth, but in the long jump. Lyles, not for the first time, will relish the challenge.