US track star Noah Lyles takes bronze in 200-meter as Letsile Tebogo of Botswana wins gold

PARIS — With a chance to join the likes of Usain Bolt and Carl Lewis in Olympic history, American sprinting star Noah Lyles was upset in his bid to add to his gold-medal haul Thursday.

Racing in the 200-meter final inside Stade de France, Lyles finished a distant third in 19.70 seconds, behind gold medalist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana in 19.46 and fellow American Kenny Bednarek in 19.62. Lyles was attempting to become the first man to sweep both sprints at an Olympics since Bolt in 2016, and the first from the US since Lewis 40 years ago.

Chants of “USA” rang out as runners stepped into their blocks, then silence overtook the stadium. Running from the fifth lane, Lyles was behind by a sizable margin coming off the turn into the homestretch. He had run from behind to win the 100-meter title four nights earlier but in this race, the gap was too big to overcome.

The result was a surprise because unlike the 100 meters, where Lyles had developed into a medal contender only during the past two years, he was the heavy favorite in the 200, his specialty. Lyles had won 26 consecutive races dating to 2021 until finishing second in Wednesday’s semifinal — also to Tebogo — and had been 38-5 all-time against the seven other sprinters in Thursday’s final.

To say Lyles entered the final confidence would be an understatement; “I’ll be winning,” he had predicted four nights earlier, after his 100-meter gold medal. He vowed to leave his competitors “depressed” as they rounded the turn, halfway through. The opposite happened, as Lyles was clearly behind and having to work to gain any ground on Tebogo and Bednarek entering the homestretch. It was Bednarek’s second consecutive Olympic silver medal.

Lyles entered the Tokyo Olympics as a favorite to win the 200 after dealing with what he called lingering physical and mental-health struggles but with left bronze, a result he called “boring” at the moment. In the three years since the 27-year-old Lyles, who first gained prominence as a high schooler in Virginia, has openly shown vulnerability away from the track while also displaying few weaknesses on it. After winning his first Olympic gold medal Sunday, Lyles shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “I have Asthma, allergies, dyslexia, ADD, anxiety, and Depression. But I will tell you that what you have does not define what you can become.”

His opportunities to win more gold are not over, but his bid to become the first man to win four track and field medals in one Olympics since Lewis in 1984 is done. The US men have qualified for Friday’s final of the 4×100-meter relay, and Lyles has lobbied for months to run a leg on the 4×400-meter relay, as well.

After winning his 100-meter gold medal, Lyles stayed up until 2:45 am Monday morning while rewatching his victory by five-thousandths of a second, getting a massage to recharge his legs ahead of his 200-meter first-round race later that afternoon, and carrying out what he called “boyfriend duties.” Ella’s girlfriend, the Olympic Jamaican sprinter Junelle Bromfield, had forgotten her spikes at their massage therapist’s room and asked Lyles to pick them up on his way back to the Olympic Village.

“So here I am at 2 am, waddling with a spike bag, my bag and some toiletries,” Lyles said. “I’m like ‘huh, here I am, Olympic champion, 100 meters’.”

Maybe that wasn’t exactly how he envisioned the aftermath of winning his first Olympic gold medal, but he laughed at himself as he told the story the next day. He wasn’t expecting the 200 to end in a similarly unexpected way.