2024 Paris Olympic Games: Live coverage from day 9

The 100m final was so close no-one knew who had won the gold medal until frame-by-frame replays crowned US star Noah Lyles.

Noah Lyles is the Olympic champion and fastest man in the world . . . just.

In one of the tightest finishes in Olympic 100m history, the American claimed the title by the smallest of small margins, officially it was five thousandths of a second on the line.

Lyles produced a career best 9.79sec to win gold from Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson who was also awarded 9.79sec with American Fred Kerley taking bronze in 9.81sec.

There was an urgency about the 27-year-old from the moment he sprang onto the track in the introductions, sprinting 20 metres past the start line as he revved up the crowd into a frenzy.

He was clearly ready there and then but bizarrely officials held the nine fastest men on the planet for a couple of minutes, seemingly for no reason as music played.

The 100m race required photo finish technology to determine the winner.

This was a recipe for disaster for Lyles who is a renowned bad starter and when the Olympic final eventually got underway he was easily the worst out of the blocks.

By half-way he’d gained momentum and then over the final few metres he looked like it was his race, the problem was he was in lane seven and Thompson was over in lane four so it was hard to line them up.

Over the line they both looked at each other, confused and then stood together as they waited for the result to appear on the scoreboard. For the first time all night the Stade de France was silent.

Then mayhem broke out. Lyles name popped up first and off he went, ripping his name tag off and sprinting towards the crowd.

The race was so tight no-one was sure who had won. Picture: AFP

This was the title he craved and the one the sport also needed given no-one had filled the enormous void left by Usain Bolt.

While Lyles had been talked up in recent years, he couldn’t lay claim to be the heir to the throne until he did it on the Olympic stage.

In the lead-up to Paris he said as much: “You can’t claim to be the greatest without having an Olympic gold medal to go with it.”

Now he can say what he wants - particularly if he doubles up in the 200m which is his more favoured event - because he has delivered on all the hype.

For all the comparisons with Bolt, an Olympic gold was the one glaring omission in his CV and it has driven him mad for the past three years.

His first Olympic experience in Tokyo didn’t go according to plan, he won the bronze medal in the 200m but didn’t handle the pressure of the occasion.

Noah Lyles was kept waiting before finding out he had won. Picture: AFP

He says it “ignited the fire” to change as a person and runner.

Funnily enough the one element he has been working to change almost brought him undone again.

Lyles is a natural 200m runner who has switched down to the 100m. As a consequence he’s not great out of the blocks and even though his coach talked up how much they’d focussed on the first 30m in the lead-up to Paris it didn’t show.

Instead each race was the same. The heat on Saturday, Lyles was slow out and then couldn’t catch British youngster Louie Hinchliffe.

For the semi-final, hit repeat and play again.

Lyles was slow away, Jamaican Oblique Seville left the blocks like he was shot out of a cannon and then by the time the reigning world champion was gathering himself the race was over and Seville was shutting it down a couple of metres from the line.

While there was only .02sec separating Seville and Lyles, the optics weren’;t good for the gold medal favourite.

Noah Lyles celebrates after winning the men's 100m final. Picture: AFP

And we know what happened in the final but this time he had something up his sleeve as only the greats do, as Bolt did for so many years.

Bolt rewrote the track and field record books before he retired in 2017. His times of 9.58sec in the 100m and 19.19sec in the 200m are world records. The Jamaican superstar, whose last Olympics was in 2016, owns eight Olympic gold medals.

Lyles has six world championship gold medals. He won three consecutive world championship titles in the 200m and added the 100m title last year in Budapest.

Like Bolt he is an entertainer and a box office smash hit the sport desperately needed.

The first Olympics after Bolt’s etirement was an unmitigated disaster. An Italian long-jumper who’d barely run under 10 seconds, Marcel Jacobs, shocked the world by claiming the fastest man on the planet.

Everyone thought it was a one-off at the time and Jacobs has barely figured since. He did manage to make the final in Paris and finished fifth before clutching his hamstring over the line.

Now, thanks to a proverbial eyelash, the Bolt baton is in worthy hands.

Relive all the action for day 9 of the 2024 Paris Olympics with our blog below

Originally published as 2024 Paris Olympic Games: Live coverage from day 9