Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles was awarded a bronze medal in the men’s 200m final after testing positive for Covid-19 and has now withdrawn from the 4x100m relay at Paris 2024.
The American tested positive on Tuesday morning but made it through the 200m and was set to run the final on Thursday evening, where he was beaten by Letsile Tebogo of Botswana.
Immediately after the race, Lyles was seen sitting in a chair, and the 27-year-old was helped off the track in a wheelchair.
“I have COVID,” Lillis confirmed. “I tested positive at about 5 a.m. on Tuesday. I woke up in the middle of the night with severe chills, sore throat, and aches, and pain, which were the symptoms I had right before I got COVID.”
“It definitely affected my performance. I had to take a lot of breaks… I was coughing all night. I’m proud of myself more than anything, I came here to get the bronze medal with Covid.
“I had better days, but I can walk again. I was very dizzy after that race. I had shortness of breath and chest pain, but after a while I was able to catch my breath and regain my strength. I am much better now.”
Lyles revealed that he was isolated in a hotel near the Olympic Village after testing positive. “We were trying to keep it a secret,” he said.
“It was the medical staff, the coach and my mom who knew. We didn’t want everyone to panic, we wanted them to be able to compete.
“We wanted to make this as free as possible. I’m a competitive person. Why give them an advantage over you?”
In an Instagram post after the race, Lillis appeared to confirm that he would not be trying to help Team USA win gold in the 4×100-meter relay on Friday.
He wrote: “I think this will be the end of the 2024 Olympics. It is not the Olympics I dreamed of but it left me with a lot of joy in my heart. I hope everyone enjoys the show. Whether you are cheering for me or against me, you have to admit that you watched, right?”
Lyles was aiming for a rare hat-trick of gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m at the same Olympics. Only four men have ever won the triple at the same Games, and after winning the 100m by five-thousandths of a second in a dramatic shootout finish on Monday night, Lyles still hopes to join American greats Jesse Owens (1936), Bobby Morrow (1956) and Carl Lewis (1984), as well as Jamaica’s Usain Bolt (2012 and 2016), on the list.
But – just as in last night’s semi-final – Lyles came out behind Tebogo and was never able to catch him.
Tebogo became the first African to win the title, setting an African record, and thus winning Botswana’s first Olympic gold medal.
Former US Olympic champion Michael Johnson has challenged the idea that Lyles suffered an injury while doing his pundit duties for the BBC – before news broke that he had tested positive for coronavirus.
“He definitely doesn’t have an injury because you can’t do that with an injury, you can’t run 19.70 seconds,” he said.
“If anything, there was some kind of illness that robbed him of his energy and ability to carry that speed all the way.”
Shortly after, USATF announced that the bronze medalist had competed after testing positive for COVID-19.
“We can confirm that Noah Lyles tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday,” USA Track and Field said in a statement. “In response, the USOC and USA Track and Field quickly put in place all necessary protocols to prioritize his health, the well-being of our team, and the safety of his fellow competitors.”
“Our primary commitment is to ensure the safety of Team USA athletes while preserving their right to compete. After a thorough medical evaluation, Noah has elected to compete tonight. We respect his decision and will continue to closely monitor his condition.
“As an organization, we strictly adhere to the IOC guidelines regarding respiratory diseases to prevent the spread of the disease among team members, and to protect their health and performance.”
Tebogo, who won bronze at last year’s world championships and set a national record of 9.86 seconds when he finished sixth in the 100m final in Paris, produced a strong performance to become the fifth-fastest man in history over 200m. Bednarek chased him down to the finish to claim a second straight silver in 19.62 seconds.
Lyles and Bednarek were scheduled to team up in the men’s 4x100m relay, in which the United States was likely to win the gold medal and take the title from Italy, which shocked the world in Tokyo, but Lyles’ apparent withdrawal gives other countries a greater chance of taking the Olympic title from the Americans.
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