Noah Lyles took the bronze medal Thursday in the men’s 200 meters at the Paris Olympics, then hunched over on the track, motioned for water and was eventually taken away on a makeshift wheelchair.
Minutes later, he said in an interview with NBC while wearing a mask that he was diagnosed with COVID-19 two days before the race.
“I woke up early, about 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning and I just was feeling really horrible. I knew it was more than just being sore from the 100,” Lyles told NBC. “Woke up the doctors and we tested and unfortunately it came up that I was positive for COVID.
“My first thought was not to panic, thinking I’ve been in worse situations. I’ve run with worse conditions, I felt. We just took it day by day, trying to hydrate as much, quarantined off and I’d definitely say that it’s taken its toll for sure but I’ve never been more proud of myself for being able to come out here and getting a bronze medal. Last Olympics I was very disappointed and this time I couldn’t be more proud.”
Later Thursday, Lyles announced in a post to Instagram that his 2024 Olympics are likely over. Directly after Thursday’s race, he was still unsure if he would fight to remain in Team USA’s 4×100 relay team.
“I believe this will be the end of my 2024 Olympics,” he wrote in the post, which included a photo of him hugging 200m winner Letsile Tebogo. “It is not the Olympics I dreamed of but it has left me with so much joy in my heart. I hope everyone enjoyed the show.”
Noah Lyles provides an update on his condition after the 200m final. #ParisOlympics
📺 NBC & Peacock pic.twitter.com/9Qs1vcBycf
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2024
Lyles also required medical attention after finishing second in his semifinal heat for the 200 on Wednesday.
“I just said we were going to try and quarantine as much as possible, stay away, not try to pass it off and just, to be honest, give it my all,” Lyles said. “If I wasn’t to make it, then somebody would have definitely taken my spot and that would have been my sign that I didn’t deserve to be in the final.”
He was trying to win the sport’s first Olympic double in the 100 and 200 meters since Usain Bolt did it three times in a row from 2008 to 2016 and the first American since Carl Lewis in 1984.
Unlike at the previous two Olympics, there is no mandatory testing for COVID at the Paris Games, nor any official protocol if an athlete tests positive. In the throes of the pandemic, both the Tokyo Games in 2021 and the Beijing Games in 2022 had strict policies for testing and quarantining positive cases, preventing athletes from competing.
The Paris Olympics were billed as the first Games for a world moving beyond those widespread restrictions, with widely available vaccines and treatments. But the scene at the track, with Lyles’ mother Keisha Caine Bishop pleading for officials to help her son, was a stark reminder of the seriousness of the disease and the prevalence of the coronavirus.
Previously at these Olympics, the British swimmer Adam Peaty tested positive after winning silver in the breaststroke on July 28. He was in the pool six days later for the 4×100-meter medley ready.
Prior to the Games, five Australian water polo players tested positive and were allowed to play again when they were feeling well.
“If those five athletes are feeling well enough to train, they will and they are following all the protocols that we have,” said Anna Meares of the Australian Olympic Committee.
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(Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
