“I’ve never been in such a hard battle”: How Paris 2024 was Noah Lyles’ greatest triumph and hardest challenge

“Goodness gracious, I’m incredible,” exclaimed Noah Lyles, as his name flashed up on the big screen to announce that he was the Paris 2024 men's 100m champion.

For 99 per cent of the race to crown the ‘world’s fastest man’ Lyles had trailed, seemingly out-gunned and out-sprinted by Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson who looked to be bringing gold back to the land of Usain Bolt for the first time since Rio 2016.

As the eight athletes vying for glory in athletics’ blue ribband men's race crossed the line seemingly inseparable, nobody in the 80,000-strong Stade de France crowd knew who had won.

Then, after a wait that seemed like an eternity, Lyles was declared the winner, the first past the line by five thousandths of a second.

This had been the closest 100m final in history. The greatest race in history, some had said.

It was a race that had been decided by the leaning torso of Lyles, whose dip for the finish line was the minuscule difference between gold and disappointment.

“I hope you guys like Noah because I’ve got a lot more coming,” the new 100m champ announced.

Little did he know that what was coming would prove to be the hardest challenge of his entire life in athletics.

Noah Lyles on his photo finish 100m victory: "I believed it because I knew I was the champion"

The hours after that race saw news agencies scrambling to explain the intricacies of photo finish rules. How could an outstretched foot or flailing arm cross the finish line first and still lose to a well-placed torso?

Silver medallist Thompson lamented the fact his lack of self-belief didn’t see him turn his advantage on the track into the gold medal he so coveted.

“I didn't trust myself and my speed to bring myself to the line in first place," he said ruefully after the race.

Lyles, of course, has no such lack of self-belief.

In a race won perhaps more than anything by confidence and character, of course Lyles won. It had to be Lyles.

“You know, finally the name comes up and for a second there, I was almost shocked because I was like, this is not how I envisioned it,” Lyles said in a media event at adidas House Paris to celebrate his achievements.

“But, you know, I believed it because I knew I was the champion. I just knew that it had to be me because I wasn’t going to make a mistake like that, not in this close of a race.”

Lyles was on top of the world, still in the chase for the history-making target of four gold medals he had set himself before the Games, with his favourite 200m event — a race in which he barely ever loses — still to come.

But what happened next would rock his Olympic campaign and set him a challenge that no amount of self-belief could counter.

Noah Lyles on running the Paris 2024 200m final with COVID: "I knew it was going to be an uphill fight, but that’s my whole life.”

Just a couple of days before he was due to run the 200m, Lyles got the sort of news that every athlete dreads.

He tested positive for Covid.

“I’m just waking up in the middle of the night feeling horrible and, you know, getting tested” he recalled of the moments before he found out his fate. “And still, even despite hearing that I have COVID, all I could think of in my head was, ‘I can still do this, I still got this, we can still get the job done’.

“And I knew it was going to be an uphill fight, but that’s my whole life.”

Lyles is used to battling against the odds, used to dealing with the types of setbacks that can be devastating for a high-level sprinter.

“I grew up with asthma my whole life,” he explained. “I’ve dealt with ADHD, dyslexia, extreme allergies… almost every sickness you can think of and still prevailed.”

However, this challenge was different.

This was the race he was supposed to win, the race he cut his teeth on, the race in which he was the third-fastest runner of all time.

As he sprinted around the half-lap distance in the Stade de France, Lyles somehow found the energy to finish.

Victory was beyond his reach but the bronze medal he won before collapsing on the track and being whisked away in a wheelchair was, arguably, the greatest achievement of his life.

“This may be my favourite medal that I have so far,” Lyles shared. “I’ve never been in such a hard battle.”

Noah Lyles' 200m triumph - a metaphor for his life

Lyles’ story is one that he will probably tell for years to come. It is already being told in the Netflix documentary SPRINT, where his larger-than-life personality has made him one of the main characters in the popular series.

He is a sprinting star for our era, attempting to push his sport into a new age where track athletes can garner the same attention as NBA players, footballers, and the other big-name sportspeople that fill the back pages of newspapers and go viral on social media.

But while his 100m victory may be his greatest triumph, his 200m bronze could be considered the great metaphor for his life.

“I’ve made teams that I was told I wasn’t supposed to make, I’ve gotten medals that I’m supposed to be told aren’t possible, I’ve broken records that they say were never supposed to be broken,” he said.

"Just because it hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”