Noah Lyles secured a gold medal in the men’s 100m final at the Summer Olympics in Paris — but by a very narrow margin. During the finals at the Stade de France on Sunday, Aug. 4, the 27-year-old Team USA sprinter finished the race in 9.79 seconds — his personal best — to beat Jamaican sprinter Kishane Thompson for the gold by 0.005 seconds, according to The New York Times. So how do the officials decide the winner by such a narrow margin?
Noah Lyles August 4, 2024
BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images
Noah Lyles won his first gold medal in the 100m final at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
According to times, on the scoreboard after the end of the 100 meter final next to the names of Lyles and his other competitors was written a PHOTOGRAPH. PHOTO — referring to photo finish — is a term used when officials need to take a closer look at a race to determine finishing times and placings.
The NBC Olympics reported that according to the official rules and regulations for track and field events, “the first athlete whose torso (as opposed to the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the nearest edge of the finish line is the winner.” Officials determined that Lyles’ torso crossed the finish line before the rest of his competitors.
The photo finish for the men’s 100m final was captured by Omega Scan’O’Vision, which was used to determine the winner. “Critical moment [for Noah] came right at the end [of the race],” an Omega spokesperson tells PEOPLE. “While Noah managed to maintain his speed until the last 34.85 meters, when his opponent slowed down a bit, [that allowed him] to take the lead just after the nine-second mark.”
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Noah Lyles August 4, 2024
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images
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In the end, Thompson won the silver medal for Jamaica, and Lyles’ Team USA teammate, Fred Kerley, won the bronze. Lyles’ win, meanwhile, marks his first Olympic gold medal and Team USA’s first gold medal in the men’s 100 meters since the 2004 Athens Games. Lyles told PEOPLE and other reporters that at first he thought Thompson ” got in the end,” and even told his competitor, “I think you’ve got that big dog.”
“And then my name popped up and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m amazing,'” he continued. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t ready to see it. And that’s the first time I’ve said that in my head, like I wasn’t ready to see it. It was a few lanes down, so it was hard for me to imagine where we were, but I guess that was good.”
Noah Lyles on winning bronze after a tough year: ‘Just because I’m fighting doesn’t mean I’m going to give up’
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Eric W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated/Getty
Lyles initially had slow reaction times at the start of the race and was in seventh place at the halfway mark before working his way to the top near the end. “To be honest, I just believed in myself,” Lyles told PEOPLE and other reporters. “It proves that reaction time doesn’t win races.”
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Source: HIS Education