Noah Lyles wins bronze in 200 meters, then reveals he has COVID-19

SAINT-DENIS, France — Almost as soon as he crossed the finish line in the 200-meter dash Thursday night, Noah Lyles looked winded. He lay on his back on the purple track at Stade de France, after finishing third in a race he had dominated for the past three years, and struggled for breath.

Four days after winning a gold medal in one of the most thrilling endings to an Olympic sprint, Lyles took the bronze in the 200 and considered it, he said afterward, a remarkable achievement. Lyles learned that he had tested positive for the coronavirus around 5 a.m. Tuesday, less than 36 hours after he won the 100 in a photo finish that was a stunning start to an Olympic campaign he hoped would position him as the next great American track-and-field star.

But on Tuesday, after waking up with chills, aches and a sore throat, symptoms he had experienced during previous exposures, Lyles left the athletes village to quarantine in a nearby hotel. He said he was taking the antiviral treatment Paxlovid, and that he had not once considered dropping out or revealing his condition in advance of the 200 final. Athletes are not required to test or to report COVID-19 cases.

“We didn’t want everybody to go into a panic, we wanted them to be able to compete,” Lyles, wearing an N-95 mask, told reporters about 45 minutes after finishing in 19.70 seconds, behind Letsile Tebogo of Botswana (19.46), who won his country’s first Olympic gold medal in its history, and American Kenneth Bednarek (19.62). Lyles added: “And you never want to tell your competitors you’re sick. Why would you give them an edge?”

The Paris Olympics are the first to be held without the pandemic-era bubbles of the Tokyo Games in 2021 and the Beijing Games in 2022. In Tokyo, athletes were tested every four days. In Beijing, they were tested daily. When athletes tested positive, they were placed in quarantine. Most were forced to withdraw from the Games entirely.

National governing bodies have been tasked with creating their own COVID protocols. Few have specific policies, and many have resorted to something that resembles common sense. A positive test has not stopped athletes from competing.

Zac Stubblety-Cook, an Australian swimmer, had COVID when he won silver in the 200 backstroke. British swimmer Adam Peaty learned he had COVID a day after winning silver in the 100 breaststroke. Lani Pallister, another Australian swimmer, tested positive for COVID and decided to race two days later as part of the 4×200 relay team, which won gold.

For Lyles, who also has asthma, the first clue that he was not at full strength emerged Wednesday, when Tebogo raced past him in a semifinal heat; Lyles had won the past two world titles in the 200 — and had not lost in the event since 2021 — and so it seemed it was likely that he was lagging on purpose, conserving energy before Thursday’s final and the upcoming 4×100 relays.

When Lyles was introduced Thursday night, he darted out of the tunnel, spinning and shouting and pointing to the crowd. The crowd chanted “USA! USA!” until they were shushed over the arena loudspeakers.

At the gun, Lyles got off the blocks slower than the seven other finalists. But unlike Sunday, when he trailed for the first 90 meters before edging Kishane Thompson of Jamaica at the end, Lyles lacked endurance and speed, particularly around the bend.

Afterward, Lyles sat near the track, breathing heavily. He got up slowly and called for water, after which medical officials led him to a seat and spoke to him.

“Our primary commitment is to ensure the safety of Team USA athletes while upholding their right to compete,” USA Track and Field, the sport’s national governing body, said in a statement Thursday night. “We respect his decision and will continue to monitor his condition closely.”

Lyles entered these Olympics eager to reassert his primacy after foundering at the Tokyo Games, where he finished with a bronze medal in the 200 and opened up about his struggles with his mental health. He called his medal “boring” as he spoke through tears to reporters, the only people who were in the stadium.

Lyles, 27, thinks of racing as performance art. He loves to race and win, but he loves to race and win in front of a full stadium even more — the bigger and louder and feistier the crowd, the better.

He has ripped his speedsuit in triumph after winning world championships, presented anime cards to the camera before and after races, and has become a ubiquitous figure on his Peacock series, YouTube channel and the Netflix docuseries “Sprint.”

At the 2023 world championships in Budapest, Hungary, he turned in the performance he had long said he was capable of, winning the 100, 200 and the 4×100 relay.

He had been eager to go for that trifecta in Paris, too, and perhaps add a gold medal in the 4×400 to it.

Instead, the rest of Lyles’ program is in doubt. He did not win the sprint double — as Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis and Jesse Owens did — and it wasn’t clear Thursday whether he would run in any relays.

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