Shortly after crossing the finish line in the 200m final at this summer's Olympics, Noah Lyles collapsed to the ground out of breath. He lingered there, gasping and clutching at his chest for what felt an age before medics arrived and carted him off the Stade de France track in a wheelchair.
Later, Lyles made the bombshell revelation that he had been suffering from Covid for three days. The scene, an Olympic cliffhanger that rivalled only the American's golden photo-finish in the 100m final, is among the major inflection points in the 2024 track season offered up for closer examination in the second season of Sprint - the fly on-the-wall series that follows some of the biggest names in the sport and released on Netflix this month.
Lyles was able to savour the bronze he won in the 200m another keepsake to remind him of his triumphs over dyslexia, ADD, anxiety and depression. But when he sat down to rewatch the episode dealing with the 200m with his fiancee, the Jamaican sprinter Junelle Bromfield, Lyles said he could barely get through it. "I'm proud," he says, "but it's still so hard to watch because I can only constantly just think what if. What if I didn't get [Covid]?"
The 27-year-old had a lot riding on his second Olympics. He planned to compete in four events - the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m and 4x400m relays. He aimed to become the first American man in four decades to strike gold in the 100m and 200m. He also wanted to make up for his showing at the Covid-compromised Tokyo Olympics, where he won bronze in the 200m. Not for nothing, he had put a fair amount of that pressure on himself.
But on the road to redemption Lyles took a bit of a heel turn. He started a war of words with the NBA, saying the league was presumptuous to crown its winners world champions ("world champion of what? The United States?"). Things got a little awkward when Lyles had to share a boat with many of Team USA's NBA players at the Paris opening ceremony.
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