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 retrieved 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, holding the bronze medal aloft.
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 victory 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. Lyles might even talk his way into running a leg of the men’s 4×400-meter relay and seizing the rare chance to win a fourth gold medal in the same Olympics.
For Lyles, the path to this moment of glory began three years ago. He doesn’t achieve gold in Paris if he weren’t humbled by settling 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.
The mental health issues affected his performance.Lyles finished a distant seventh in the 100 final at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials. He only qualified for Tokyo in his signature 200.
When Lyles arrived in Tokyo to find empty stadiums, strict COVID protocols and minimal support from family or friends, his mental health further deteriorated. Standing on the starting line, staring at nothing but empty seats before the men’s 200 final, track’s ultimate showman 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, then 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, to convert the disappointment of Tokyo into fuel for future success and to lay out a psychological game plan for race days.
Whereas before he felt pressure to live up to other people’s expectations or anxious before big races, now Lyles says he tries to frame it as if 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 change 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.
When another Olympic year arrived, Lyles this time has been ready to seize the moment. The motivation that he has needed is his unwanted Tokyo keepsake.
“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.’”
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