You'll require multiple viewings of the men's 100-meter final to figure out how the hell Noah Lyles came in first place. It wasn't obvious in real time, and the American sprinter later said that he thought Jamaica's Kishane Thompson had won the race. But after reviewing the tape, a winning margin of five-thousandths of a second gave Lyles his first Olympic gold medal, making him the first American to win the event since Justin Gatlin in 2004.
You can watch Sunday's race in real time below, or here on YouTube. Lyles is in lane No. 7; Thompson is in lane No. 4. NBC commentator Leigh Diffey's call of the finish, declaring Thompson the winner, might as well have been "And Dewey defeats Truman!"
Lyles, who was actually last in the pack after 30 meters, picked it up in the back half of the race and won the gold with a time of 9.784 seconds. Thompson finished in second with 9.789. It was reportedly the closest 1-2 finish for the 100-meter since at least the 1980 Olympics, when Allan Wells beat Silvio Leonard, both men receiving times of 10.25 seconds. Back then, they weren't using thousandths of a second.
A lean at the very end allowed Lyles's chest to cross the finish line before Thompson's. "We were waiting for the names to pop up, and I'm going to be honest, I came over [to Thompson] and I was like, 'I think you got that one, big dawg!'" Lyles said in his postrace presser, via ESPN. "Something said I need to lean, and I was like, 'I'm going to lean,' because it's that type of race."
Here's another angle of the photo finish. Note that the torso has to cross the line, so the foot in front of Lyles does not matter:
While it's no solace to the rest of the pack, all eight runners finished in less than 10 seconds, even last-place Oblique Seville of Jamaica with a time of 9.91, and it's the first time ever that seven men finished in under 9.90 seconds in a wind-legal race. Great job, fellas. Unfortunately the medals end at three.
