PARIS — Noah Lyles didn’t hesitate when asked what inspired his epic victory in Sunday night’s impossibly close, impossibly dramatic Olympic men’s 100 meters final.
The newly crowned world’s fastest man rummaged in a bag and then displayed the Tokyo bronze medal that he packed before leaving for Paris last month.
“I was fueled as soon as I saw this in my hands,” Lyles said.
To Lyles, the medal is not a prize that he earned but a symbol of the lowest moment of his track and field career. He brought it with him to the Stade de France the past few days because the sight of it instantly motivates him.
Lyles won his first career Olympic gold medal in a photo finish on Sunday night, coming from behind to overtake Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson and edge him by five-thousandths of a second. He is the first American to capture first place in the men’s 100 since Justin Gatlin did it 20 years ago.
That could be the beginning of a transformative week for Lyles in Paris if all goes according to plan. He is a heavy favorite to win gold in the 200 this week and he is the most obvious choice to run the anchor leg in the men’s 4×100-meter relay. The way Lyles sees it, he might even talk his way into running a leg of the 4×400-meter relay and giving himself a chance at a rare fourth gold medal in the same Olympics.
The starting point for all that success came three years ago. Lyles doesn’t achieve gold in Paris if he didn’t settle for bronze in Tokyo.
During the buildup to the Tokyo Olympics, Lyles was not in a good head space. The depression that he had dealt with when bullied as a kid had returned, fueled by the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and uncertainty surrounding when or if the postponed Tokyo Olympics would ever happen.
Lyles only qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in the 200, not the 100. When he arrived to empty stadiums, strict COVID protocols and minimal support from family or friends, his mental health further deteriorated.
Standing on the starting line before the men’s 200 final, he remembers thinking, “This is not fun. This is not it.”
Lyles, then 24 and already the best 200-meter runner in the world, finished third in the 200 that day, just his second career loss at that distance as a professional. He uncharacteristically couldn’t hold a slim lead as he rounded the curve and let Canada’s Andre De Grasse and fellow American Kenny Bednarek overtake him.
When Lyles spoke to reporters that night, he called his bronze medal “boring.” He sobbed as he talked about his own mental health struggles, about antidepressants causing him to gain weight, about having to cycle off that medication to prepare for Olympic Trials.
Lyles returned home saying to himself, “I’ve got to change. I’ve got to evolve.” Recommitting to therapy, he says, is what made the biggest difference for him. Therapy helped him overcome his crippling fears of returning to the track and to convert the disappointment of Tokyo into fuel for future success.
Whereas before he felt pressure to live up to other people’s expectations for him or anxious before a big race, now he says he tries to frame it as though he is “extremely curious as to what is going to happen.”
“That’s how me and my therapist phrase it,” he said smiling.” I’m curious what I’m going to do. How am I going to pull this off?”
The chance that Lyles wanted to see didn’t take years or even months. It took weeks. Only a month after the Tokyo Olympics, Lyles ran a world-leading time in the 200 at the Prefontaine Classic. He followed that up in 2022 by eclipsing Michael Johnson’s American record in the 200 and last year by pulling off the rare sprint treble at World Championships last year.
Everything that Lyles achieved can be traced back to three years ago.
“I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, I think I’m doing enough,” Lyles said earlier this summer. “Then I turn around and look at the medal — ‘All right, back to work.’”
