Graceless Noah Lyles stole Letsile Tebogo’s thunder… Botswana’s first-ever gold medallist let talent do the talking, writes OLIVER HOLT

When you’re the fastest man on earth, life comes at you fast.

Noah Lyles, recently crowned Olympic champion in the men’s 100 meters, leapt and skipped out of the tunnel for the start of the 200 meter final on Thursday evening.

He waved his arms in the air and shouted his brilliance to the crowd, preparing for the next step in his bid to establish himself as Usain Bolt’s successor.

After just 19.46 seconds, Lyles was in third place, behind Botswana’s first Olympic gold medalist, Letsile Tebogo, and fellow countryman Kenny Bednarek.

After collapsing on the court, Lyles immediately told the world that he had been suffering from Covid for the past three days.

One can regret his illness and the impact it had on him, but also regret the sloppiness with which he cost Tebogo the show with an apology.

“It definitely affected my performance,” Lyles said. “I’m more proud of myself than anything. That I got the bronze medal with Covid.”

Tebogo’s victory was a moving story in itself. It came just months after the death of his mother and inspiration, Seratiwa.

Tebogo’s mother accompanied him to Budapest in 2023, where he won a silver medal behind Lyles in the 100 meters at the world championships.

“Letsile is not a man of many words,” Seratiwa said shortly before she died, making him the opposite of Lyles.

However, on Thursday evening, Tebogo dedicated his victory to his mother and showed his talent with his performance.

Tebogo was so comfortable at the front that he started beating his chest with his palm before he even crossed the finish line. Does that remind you of anyone? If there was one sprinter who had a claim to Bolt’s title of honor at the Stade de France, it wasn’t Lyles.

“Comparing anyone to anyone else is the lazy man’s view,” Lyles said recently about being compared to Bolt.

But the truth is that he invites those comparisons by claiming that Bolt is the greatest showman in athletics.

Bolt has always backed up his bravado, winning the 100m-200m double at the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics.

Lyles may be even more outgoing than Bolt, and his pre-start antics may be even wilder and he may talk more than the great Jamaican, but he is far from the heir to his throne.

He’s had a fantastic Games here in Paris. A gold medal in the 100m — the race he calls his mistress — and now a bronze medal in the 200m — the race he calls his wife — is an achievement.

The point is, whatever your excuse, if you aim high, if you win the 100 meters and say, ‘My God, I’m incredible,’ then you have to deliver.

“I’m pretty confident,” Lyles said ahead of the 200m final. “I can’t lie. I’m going to win. When they come out of the corner, they’re going to be depressed. If you say that, you better back it up.

Lyles couldn’t do it. He’s a brilliant athlete, but he’s not a phenomenon like Bolt. The same goes for Jakob Ingebrigtsen. A superstar, but far too fallible to be remembered as the greatest of all time.

As Tebogo celebrated becoming the first-ever African winner of the men’s 200 metres at the Olympics, Lyles lay flat on his back, gasping for breath, just metres from the finish line.

The man dubbed The Big Noise by one publication was now silent and struggled to stand, eventually pulling himself to one knee and remaining there for a while.

He tried to walk back to the athletes’ tunnel, but couldn’t. He crashed into a wall and asked for help from the medical staff.

Several people crowded around him, helped him into a wheelchair and pushed him out of the stadium. A Paris 2024 spokesman said Lyles was unable to walk away on his own.

Rumors soon circulated that USA Track and Field had said Lyles was suffering from Covid-19 and Bednarek said he had heard his fellow American “had some kind of illness.”

After the race, Lyles confirmed that he had tested positive for Covid in the early morning hours of Tuesday and had been in quarantine at a hotel since then to recover.

He said he had already regained some of his energy on Thursday, but he didn’t want to tell anyone about his illness. He didn’t want to give his rivals a head start before the race.

“I’ve had better days,” Lyles said afterward, “but I’m walking around again. I was pretty dizzy after that race.

“The chest pain was definitely active. But after a while I got my breathing back and I was back to my senses. I feel a lot better now.”

Whatever the reason for his achievements, whether it was his shortcomings, his illness or the genius of Tebogo, Lyles never came close to his rival.

Earlier this week he had managed to win the 100 metres by five thousandths of a second, but this time he could not get Tebogo any closer than a mile.

Considering he was ill, it might have been wiser to conserve some energy rather than sprint out of the race tunnel like a man possessed by furies.

History was at stake here, after all. Only nine men have ever won the sprint double at an Olympics, and it’s an impressive list. Men like Jesse Owens, Valeriy Borzov, Carl Lewis and, of course, Bolt are on it, and Lyles was desperate to join them in the pantheon.

After his double victory at the World Championships in Budapest, he wanted to win again here to seal his greatness.

The only double he achieved was a second bronze medal, in addition to the bronze medal he won at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

A second gold of these Games never seemed to be in sight. Lyles was slow out of the blocks, as so often happens, and he never threatened to close the gap on Tebogo.

As the race flattened out after the corner, it became clear how much work Lyles had to put in to catch the man from Botswana.

He was unable to close the gap and Tebogo flew across the finish line, carried by shoes with his mother’s date of birth on them.

“I kind of carry her through every step I take on the field,” the new champion said. “Me, to take her, it gives me a lot of motivation. She looks up there and she’s really, really happy.”