200m gold to Botswana

Historic run thwarted Lyles’ dream

Letsile Tebogo (left) won 200 m gold.

(Bild: Mattia Ozbot for World Athletics)

Noah Lyles' dream of winning four Olympic gold medals was shattered on his favorite track. The 100-meter champion surprisingly had to settle for bronze in the 200 meters behind Letsile Tebogo from Botswana and US compatriot Kenny Bednarek. It is the first sprint gold for an African country.

Again he jumped up and down like a madman, running tens of meters in both directions before the start, spreading his arms out as if to say: Look, it's me, the grand champion. The other 200m aces seemed discreetly annoyed by the spectacle that Noah Lyles put on. However, the audience rewarded his show with the biggest applause by far.

Historic sprint gold
He also shot out of the starting blocks like a bullet out of a cannon and seemed to have achieved the sprint double, but someone else was even faster. The 21-year-old Letsile Tebogo was ahead from the start on the home straight and Lyles was unable to counter. Tebogo won the very first Olympic gold for Botswana in a sensational time of 19.46 seconds.

Noah Lyles was only third.

(Bild: AFP)

The young man from the South African country euphorically rang the bell, the reward of every Olympic athletics champion in Paris. On the sprint track in the Stade de France, it is already the second premiere coup for a previously insignificant nation in sprinting after the 100 m women's triumph of Julien Alfred from Saint Lucia.