Team USA’s Noah Lyles, the World’s Fastest Man, Wins 100-M Olympic Gold

TIME

Team USA's Noah Lyles, the defending world champion in the 100 m, won the Olympic gold medal in that race on Sunday night at Stade de France, becoming the first male sprinter from the United States to earn a 100-m Olympic title in two decades.

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00:00Hi, I'm Sean Gregory from Time at the Stade de France, north of Paris.

00:05This stadium just hosted the most incredible, contested, exciting, dramatic 100-meter

00:13Olympic final in recent memory, if not history. Noah Lyles pulls out the gold medal in 9.784

00:24over Kashane Thompson of Jamaica, who finished in 9.789 seconds. 5,000th of a second difference.

00:35An unbelievable race. I was sitting right at the finish line, saw Lyles get off to a

00:41slow start. His reaction time was the slowest in the race, but he has great top-end speed,

00:49meaning he can get off to a slow start and make up for it in the last 50, 40 meters.

00:54And he did that. You could see him charging, but you didn't know if he got close enough.

01:00There seemed to be four or five runners at the finish who could have won the race. So

01:04the race ends. There's a lot of confusion. People are looking up at the board. Fred Curley at one

01:10point just went first on the board, but he wound up finishing in third. Noah Lyles went up to

01:16Thompson and said, you've got a big dog. He thought Thompson had it because Lyles couldn't

01:21see Thompson because he was a few lanes away. But the board finally showed Noah Lyles' name,

01:26and he becomes the first American man to win the premier race in track and field, the 100 meters,

01:34in 20 years. An incredible night here at the track stadium, and more to come as Noah Lyles

01:40runs the 200 meters on Thursday and is already guaranteed that victory. We shall see.

01:45I'm Sean Gregory reporting for TIME.

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