The shortest race and the longest of glories — how a brash American bent time to claim 100m Olympic gold (2024)

Time is a funny thing.

Sometimes it can feel like you have too much of it.

We all know the feeling. Wasted, lethargic hours waiting for that one moment, that one thing you've been looking forward to for an age.

Or perhaps there's not enough time.

Suddenly that long-anticipated moment approaches with all the subtlety and hesitancy of a coal train in full flight.

That is the Olympics.

Four long years (usually) between those moments that everyone remembers.

Four years of waiting.

That is what Noah Lyles, dramatic champion of the 100m sprint in Paris, was feeling.

Having missed the event in Tokyo after finishing seventh at the US trials, Lyles was more determined than ever to achieve his goal of adding his name to the list of champions and take the crown as 100/200 sprint king left vacant by Usain Bolt.

After all the years of training, all the years of dreaming, before he knew it, he was on the blocks, staring down the purple track, 70,000 pairs of eyes staring intently at him and seven others, everyone holding their breath, silently waiting.

This is when those seconds begin to stretch again, the gap between being introduced to the crowd and the starter taking control, a time of contemplation in the near-silence.

Then, the robotic-sounding voice tonelessly orders the runners: "To your marks."

More time. The final seconds will stretch indeterminably as feet are placed on blocks.

This is where the best runners bend time to their own will, though.

This is for the final mind games.

For a race that takes 10 seconds or less to complete, so much is run and done before even stepping onto the track.

The hype. The posturing. The talk.

It all has to happen before the race gets underway — there is simply no time from the moment the gun goes until it's all over.

That's why the 100m remains the blue-riband event of the Olympics, its winner lauded like no other.

Is it curious that the shortest event on the program carries such immense gravitas?

No.

These are the fastest men on the planet.

The Olympic motto — Faster. Higher. Stronger — has it right.

Right at the front. Faster is what people want and, with the 100m, faster is what people get.

Its simplicity is its charm.

Run from this point, to this point: No bends. No obstacles. No complications.

It's not only in people's dreams that they can sprint. Even a mad dash to the bus stop serves the same purpose as racing down the track — albeit with slightly less riding on it.

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There's that robotic voice again: "Set."

It will only be a second before the gun, but the pause, heavy with anticipation makes it seem like an age.

The crowd has been silent now for only a matter of seconds but the air hangs heavy, a pregnant pause weighted like few in world sport — the great inhale before the roar.

This is what all the training, all the hours on the track and in the gym, all those frustrating minutes on the treatment table, has been gearing for.

Off goes the gun.

Time, so malleable up until this point, becomes brutally fixed, metronomically determining who will wheel away in the immortal glory that comes with being an Olympic champion.

But first, the semifinals. There was a bit more time to wait.

In the first semifinal, Oblique Seville flew out of the blocks, a personal best of 9.81 awaited him.

Seville looked to his right as he closed towards the line, glancing at American favourite Noah Lyles who, slow off the blocks, was finishing quickly on his left to finish in 9.83.

Lyles, the personable yet brash 27-year-old hoping to complete the sprint double in Paris, seemed to be a touch surprised as he stared across to his right at the streaking flash of yellow.

The world champion was yet to cross the line first in a race at this Games.

In the second semifinal, Akani Simbine and Letsile Tebogo edged out the defending Olympic champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs.

Surprise winner in Tokyo, Italian Jacobs has had a rough three years since that golden night in Japan.

Now, he has a wait to see if he will be one of the two fastest non-automatic qualifiers to progress. It would only be a wait of a handful of minutes to see if he would make the final.

It would feel like hours. Three years of waiting. Three years of work, condensed into 10 short minutes. All the 29-year-old's hopes resting on the efforts of others.

Kishane Thompson up in the next semifinal, the Jamaican flying home in 9.80, ahead of Fred Kerley of America in 9.84.

Jacobs could breathe again. His time of 9.92 was enough to qualify, as was American Kenneth Bednarek's 9.93.

Two Jamaicans. Three Americans. A South African, Botswanan and Italian.

Little over an hour to wait before a date with destiny.

While the crowd experienced the ups and downs of other finals, these sprinters were out back. Recovering.

But, it was not long before they were back on the track again, time racing as fast as their beating hearts.

Time for the mind games once more.

Jacobs and Lyles at polar opposites, the defending champion calm, the upstart making a scene, leaping and jumping and revving up the crowd.

The referee holds them for an age, allowing the crowd to reach a crescendo and let the tension build even more.

The shortest race obviously needs the longest build up.

Silence at last. The only sound the buzzing of a helicopter above the Stade de France.

Another delay.

Then a roar from the bowels of the stadium, 70,000 people screaming for their lives and the life-changing moment they were hoping to see.

They crossed the finish in a line. "Photo" flashed up on the scoreboard. Everyone stared.

The time? 9.79.

A delay of seconds that stretched into eternity.

Time stood still. Thirty seconds of waiting.

The winner? Noah Lyles.

The gap? 0.005 seconds to Thompson and ahead of Kerley in third, just 0.02 behind.

The shortest race. The tightest of margins.

The longest of glories.