It has been many Olympic Games since the men’s 100-meter final was as close as the one experienced this Sunday at the Stade de France in Paris. Exciting until the last thousandth. Until the last torso.
For several seconds after the end of the race, American Noah Lyles and Jamaican Kishane Thompson believed they had won the gold medal in what is one of the two “queen events” of the Olympics.
Both had had a close race. Both had recorded the same time. The Stade de France crowd held its breath.
Then came the final decision: The gold medal would go to Lyles.
But opinions were divided: television footage showed Thompson’s foot had crossed the line first, while others argued that it was the head that mattered, in which case it was Lyles who deserved the gold medal.
But neither the foot nor the head: It is the torso.
The rules of the International Federation of Athletics (World Athletics) clearly state that “athletes shall be placed in the order in which any part of their body (i.e. the torso, as opposed to the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the edge nearest the finish line.”
In the images released by the International Olympic Committee and World Athletics, Lyles’ chest can be seen touching the finish line first.
Lyles’ time for these 100 meters was 9.76 seconds.
But it is a millimetric detail. So much so that the winner did not believe he had won.
“I thought Thompson had it at the end. I walked up to him while we were waiting and I said, ‘I think you got it, well done,’ and then my name came up and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m amazing,’” Lyles explained to the media.
“I’ll be honest, He wasn’t ready to see me first And this is the first time I’ve said this. I wasn’t ready to see it,” he added.
For his part, Thompson says he has learned a lesson.
“I wasn’t patient enough with myself to let my speed get me to the line, to the position I know I could have gotten to, but I’ve learned from it,” he said.
This technical detail is one of the many that made this race a special event.
First: The eight men finished 0.12 seconds away from the gold medal, with the last-place finisher, Jamaican Oblique Sevilla, crossing the line in 9.91, a time that would have been good enough for fourth place at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
That meant that for the first time, eight men ran under 10 seconds in a sanctioned race, making it the fastest of all time.
For American Olympic medalist Michael Johnson, this was “the best 100-meter race I have ever seen.”
“The final lived up to expectations. Throughout the rounds, it seemed inevitable that Kishane Thompson would win, as he was the one who came here as the fastest man in the world.”
“We had this amazing race where you could throw a sheet over the finish line,” Johnson added, referring to the fact that all the athletes lined up at almost the same point on the track at almost the same time.
Another striking aspect is the speed at which Lyles was able to get into first place.
He had the worst start of the eight competitors and was not in a medal position for 40 meters.
He then accelerated to a speed of 43.6 kilometres per hour. And he took home the gold.
And there’s more to come: the 200 metres (she already won the bronze medal in Tokyo 2020), the 400 metres and the 4×100 relay.
“He wants to be a global superstar. He talks about Usain Bolt and the kind of person he was. He talks about his sport and expresses his frustration that it doesn’t give you that platform,” Johnson concluded.
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