It has taken seven years and one of the greatest races of all time but, finally, athletics is stepping out of Usain Bolt’s shadow. If Noah Lyles is not there already he is in the process of becoming a star who transcends the sport. And, unlike during Bolt’s peak, there are a host of rivals who have and will continue to beat the newly-crowned world ’s fastest man.
The real beauty of this Olympic final lay not in Lyles backing up his big talk but in how compressed the entire field was as they reached the line. The winning time of 9.79secs was not spectacularly quick, matching Ben Johnson’s short-lived world record in 1988.
But if Seoul was the dirtiest race in history, Paris will go down as the closest. Even the last-placed Seville Oblique was just 0.12secs behind as all eight men went sub-10 for the first time ever in an Olympic final.
Lyles, a slow starter, was behind until the final frame of the photoshoot. It was the only one that mattered. Initially he thought Jamaican favourite Kishane Thompson had won and for a brief moment, while the officials verified their images and the timings, no one was quite certain.
But when Lyles’ name eventually flashed on the big screens and it was confirmed that he triumphed by just five thousandths of a second, it immediately felt like a transformative moment for the entire sport. Every session at Stade de France has been a 66,500 sell out and, as World Athletics chief Lord Seb Coe said, athletics is “the heart and soul of the G.