“Noah Lyles woke up with a wicked sore throat, an aching body and chills”
“So, I was like I need to test this one.”
The test came back positive, throwing Lyles’ historic pursuit of an Olympic sprint double into chaos two days before Thursday at 5am on Tuesday night’s men’s 200 final.
Lyles quarantined in a hotel near the Olympic Village, tried to get as much rest and as many fluids as he could, and took any medication that he could without being flagged by anti-doping authorities.
However, the thought of not racing in the 200 hardly crossed Lyles’ mind, especially after he reached the final by toughing out a second-place finish in his semifinal on Wednesday.
Lyles said that he “still wanted to run” and that doctors encouraged him to do it. From the very beginning of the Thursday night final, it was apparent that the world’s most invincible 200 runner did not have his normal kick.
Noah Lyles dropped behind at the start and had to work to recover on the straight, but he was unable to catch Letsile Tebogo of Botswana and compatriot Kenny Bednarek, who completed in that order. Tebogo’s triumph in 19.46 set a new personal best and came 16-hundredths of a second ahead of Bednarek.
Hykes finished third in 19.70, nearly four-tenths of a second off his previous best and even farther removed from the Usain Bolt-record time he had hoped to achieve.
How did it impact his performance while he was unwell? Lyles: “Certainly.” His girlfriend, Junelle Bromfield, mentioned in their room that as he slept “he was coughing all night.”
Lyles was subbed out after finishing due to the fact he felt “lightheaded,” “shortness of breath,” and “chest pain.”.
He was eventually pushed away in a wheelchair and his mother was spotted bounding down a corridor. His asthma was a cause for concern more than an hour later.
He told us what he was feeling right now. “I felt a lot better.” “I get a chance to live another day,” he boasted.
