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The American sprinter was crowned Olympic champion in the 100m on Sunday evening in a highly intense final. Only twelve hundredths of a second separated the first from the last in the race.
The United States finally returns to the top of the premier race, 20 years after Justin Gatlin. Noah Lyles, three-time reigning world champion (100m, 200m, 4x100m) won the men’s 100m final at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Sunday, August 4, at the Stade de France. The 27-year-old Floridian sprinter beat Jamaican Kishane Thompson to the line, winning by a whisker in the same hundredth, beating his personal best in the process (9.784 for Lyles, 9.789 for Thompson).
While they set the best annual time for ten years, the American sprinters systematically saw the Olympic title escape them. Justin Gatlin had missed his final in Rio in 2016, to the benefit of Usain Bolt, and Fred Kerley had seen the surprising Italian Marcell Jacobs snatch the grail from him in Tokyo in 2021. The outgoing Olympic vice-champion this time won the bronze, while the Transalpine failed in fifth place, in a final with unprecedented density: 12 hundredths separated the first and the last.