Sixty metres into the men’s 100-metre Olympic final in Paris and Noah Lyles is third. He is three-hundredths of a second down on his compatriot Fred Kerley and Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson.

Yet — and this may sound bizarre — that is exactly where he needs to be.

Lyles has unmatched top-end speed. He wins as Usain Bolt used to, opening up his stride (to a ridiculous 2.5m) and eating up ground on others before cruising past. He holds form while they struggle and decelerate.

The headline is Lyles winning by five-thousandths of a second in the closest men’s 100m Olympic final ever — and the hardest for which to qualify. Lyles (9.78sec) ran the fastest time in an Olympic 100m final since Bolt’s Olympic record (9.63) in London back in 2012.

Over that final 40m, Lyles can close anyone. He did it in 2023 to win the World Championships and again in trials to reach Paris.

The final frontier for him to become Olympic champion was the start… so here’s the story of how a 75-year-old and a stickman helped give Lyles the edge.

“Your reaction times suck,” says Ralph Mann.

It is July 2023 and the former Olympian — he won 400m hurdles silver at the 1972 Munich Olympics — who holds a PhD in biomechanics, is helping coach Lyles on his block starts.

At Lyles’ training base in Clermont, Florida, Mann, now 75, has a marquee set up by the side of the track. There are a series of cameras pointed at the blocks and a laptop running software that is going to eke the final per cent out of Lyles’ starts.

Over the last 40 years, Mann has watched and collected data on more than 500 of the best athletes. “We know what it takes to be an elite starter,” he says. Mann has written a 300-page textbook on the mechanics of sprinting and hurdling. What he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.

Mann has applied that knowledge and decades of experience into a software, created in 1999, that generates a stickman that overlays the video of the sprinter in the blocks. Adjusted for body size and weight (to Lyles), it shows where the limbs should be as the sprinter sets and springs out the blocks. If you’ve ever played a Mario Kart ghost race, it’s that, just applied to sprinting.

They can go frame-by-frame to see how Lyles moves compared to the most effective/efficient method, and it becomes a coaching tool for the session with real-time feedback.

Lyles’ problems were that his hips were too far back when he set and his foot turnover was poor on the first few steps. Compared to the stickman, Lyles was not compact enough in the drive phase (as the athletes get up to speed), his feet were coming up too high between steps and his contact time (how long the feet are on the floor) was too long. The ankles weren’t rigid enough, either.

In short, there was plenty to improve.

It meant that steps four to seven, which are all about extending range after getting out with the first three, would come up short compared to better starters. Mann explains to Lyles that the only way he can get faster is by reducing the time between steps and keeping contact time minimal. White tape was put horizontally across the track to give Lyles a visual representation of where he should be landing at specific steps (three and seven).

Lyles knows how the model works. When he asks Mann what he has set it at, he replies, “What we need to make you famous.” Lyles speaks about doing what works according to the model, in terms of his form, rather than what feels good. He has fully bought in.

He is loud and, to some, borderline arrogant, but Lyles shows vulnerability with Mann.

“Let’s see your precious model beat me,” he says, imploring Mann to set the model at better than Lyles’ absolute best. “Let it run away, let me get embarrassed,” says Lyles. At one stage, Mann stands over Lyles in the blocks and physically moves his hips forward in the set position. Lyles, half-joking, half-serious, says he feels like he isn’t even in the blocks.

There were green shoots of this working in February.

After losing six previous times, Lyles finally beat Christian Coleman over 60m indoors. Coleman (6.34sec) is the world record holder, but Lyles edged him out by one hundredth to take the U.S. indoors title in 6.43. Coleman got out faster, quicker with his foot turnover and was first to reach his second step, but Lyles was in contention enough (sixth at halfway, 30m) to close hard and took it on the line — you’ll see a theme developing.

For a guy who could not break 6.5sec in 2023, it was huge. Coleman then beat Lyles at the World Indoors in Glasgow in March, but Lyles ran 6.47 in the semi-final and 6.44 in the final.

Fast forward to Paris.

Mann was right: Lyles’ reaction times do suck, by Olympic standards anyway. He was the joint-slowest to react in the final (178milliseconds, with Letsile Tebogo), 26th of 27 among semi-finalists (167ms) and 46 of the 70 men in the heats, who did not false start, reacted quicker (161ms).

That is one of the hardest parts to train. Nobody wants to false start in the Olympics and the 80,000-capacity Stade de France is loud. Lyles responding slower than others did not help, but it would not be the difference between gold and silver.

Lyles, in lane seven because he finished third in his semi-final, takes his second and third steps before Thompson in lane three. It shows great foot turnover given he was the last to get out.

His form and mechanics are good, even if he doesn’t accelerate as quickly through the drive phase as the Jamaican, or Tokyo 2020 100m champion Marcell Jacobs. Lyles was last up until 40m, but by 30m was moving at the same speed as Thompson.

The 60m split is the one that matters: 6.44. Lyles is suddenly third, having jumped four places from the 50m mark, going past Jacobs (lane nine), Akani Simbine (lane five), Tobogo and Oblique Seville. The latter two are outside and inside Lyles respectively.

8 frames, 1 iconic 100m final 🖼️#Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/0Q6ItW3e4j

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) August 4, 2024

“I was fortunate to have Seville next to me because, all throughout the year, he’s been hitting that acceleration that I wasn’t hitting,” said Lyles. “I wasn’t going to let him go.”

Though, as Mann once said: “Noah’s biggest competition is Noah.” His 60m split in the final was only one hundredth off what he managed at the U.S. Indoors. At the Paris Diamond League in June 2023, Lyles won in 9.97, going through 60m in 6.55. He saved one of his best starts ever for the final.

Thompson and Fred Kerley went through 60m in 6.41sec, but both had already well hit terminal velocity and were slowing. Lyles peaked slightly later than the pair and held form for longer, slower to decelerate.

Lyles’ extra stride length adds up. Across the full race, Lyles (44) took one fewer step than Thompson (45). The Jamaican might dwarf Lyles for arm or leg size, but strong arms can only pull an athlete to the line a certain amount. There is no replacement for good mechanics.

Lyles was in last at 40 meters, 7th at halfway…

His close & holding on to speed is amazing.

You can see the slight difference in the last two 10 meter splits. He ran .84 and .86 versus Thompson’s .85 and .87

What a race. What a close. pic.twitter.com/fpBAE06QJL

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— Steve Magness (@stevemagness) August 4, 2024

Lyles closed the last 40m in 3.35sec, the fastest in the race. Thompson closed in 3.38. Five others, barring Simbine who finished hard in fourth, covered the last 40m in 3.4sec or slower. “I wasn’t patient enough with my speed — I should have let it bring me to the line,” said Thompson.

In his book — it’s a textbook, really — Mann lists a series of athletes as the best in certain categories. There are the most talented, the most professional, most driven and best representatives of the sport, but he puts Lyles as one of his favourites.

After 100m gold in Paris, and a legitimate shot at doing the double with the 200m, Lyles ought to put Mann in his favourites too.

“Ralph Mann, before I left for Paris, said this is how close first and second is going to be away from each other,” said Lyles, bringing his index finger and thumb close together to gesture an inch. “I can’t believe how right he was.”

GO DEEPER

Noah Lyles’ mouth wrote the check. On the Olympics stage, his feet cashed it

(Top photo: Andy Cheung/Getty Images)

It was another day and another loss for the Chicago White Sox, but there was something extra special about Sunday’s defeat.

Sunday’s loss, a standard 13-7 defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Twins, marked their 20th in a row — a nice round number to give this franchise the national stage it deserves. No team had lost 20 in a row since the 1988 Baltimore Orioles, who lost 21 times in succession.

In Chicago, we’re used to the White Sox losing. It’s kind of their thing. But 20 in a row? We’re past the point of embarrassment here.

In Chicago, we’ve been laser-focused on the Sox being on track to break the 1962 Mets’ modern-day record of 120 losses, but now we’re at the point where they could surpass the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies’ record of 23 straight defeats.

Infamy, thy name is White Sox.

On NBC Sports Chicago’s beloved, painfully honest postgame show Sunday, host Chuck Garfien was rattling off some familiar insult statistics.

“Twentieth loss in a row, 40 games back, 1-12 against Minnesota,” he said. “I could go all day on this, 1-12 against Kansas City …”

That’s when Frank Thomas interrupted him. Thomas is, of course, the greatest player in franchise history and a semi-regular co-host on the show. As a hitter, Thomas was a stickler for details. On this show, too, he wanted it to be accurate.

“Sixty games under .500,” he said. “Under. Sixty games.”

That’s when Garfien realized his mistake. With the loss, the White Sox had dropped to 27-87. Talk about a Big Hurt.

“Sixty games,” he said. “I said they were 40 games under .500.”

With a little theatrical flourish, he slammed his stack of papers on the carpet.

“They’re 60 games under .500!” Garfien yelled, before settling back in his chair.

GO DEEPER

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That’s when Ozzie Guillen, Garfien’s everyday co-host and the team’s World Series-winning manager, brought up the stat that I came up with recently: If you take out the Sox’s two franchise-record losing streaks, they still have the worst record in baseball.

See, it’s one thing to be the worst team in baseball in a singular season. Someone has to do it, after all. But add to that a 14-game losing streak and a 20-game (and counting) losing streak, and it makes them a contender for the worst baseball team in modern history. A laughingstock for the ages.

The ’62 Mets were an expansion team with a certain sense of whimsy. They had Marvelous Marv Throneberry and Casey Stengel. Jimmy Breslin’s book, “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?” was a classic, and seven years later, the Amazin’ Mets were world champs.

But the White Sox have been around since 1901. Their franchise record for losses is 106, which should be eclipsed before Labor Day. It’s been a long way down from the rebuild that was supposed to bring multiple championship parades to Chicago.

Two years after the Sox won 93 games and the AL Central, they hit what we thought was rock bottom. That was last year when they lost 101 games and Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf made the move none of us saw coming by firing his longtime front-office duo of Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn. Reinsdorf promised a quick turnaround behind new general manager Chris Getz. No one believed Jerry then because why would they? He has no trust left with the fans, not after all these years.

For some reason — OK, money — the team kept manager Pedro Grifol, whose managing record is currently 88-188. But he’s been a dead manager walking all season, and after the trade deadline passed, the focus quickly turned to his job status. It almost seems cruel that Getz and Reinsdorf haven’t fired Grifol yet. Maybe they’re waiting for him to win a game so he can go out on a high note.

“That means Pedro is 100 games under .500 since he got the job,” Guillen said. “Hoo, hoo boy.”

Ozzie is having an existential crisis on the Postgame Show right now pic.twitter.com/5eCUlirBgI

— White Sox Talk (@NBCSWhiteSox) August 4, 2024

Guillen, who led the Sox to their World Series victory in 2005, said he needs to see a psychologist because he’s been more angry and sad than usual lately. The reason?

“I don’t think I was that bad a manager, but they picked Pedro in front of me,” Guillen said to laughter on the show.

After Tony La Russa stepped down following health issues in 2022, Guillen was given a token interview for the open job, the one that he gave away in 2011. Guillen has wanted this job back for years, but the previous regime of Williams and Hahn didn’t want him back and they had no intention of hiring him two years ago. I agreed with them but only because the organization needs to move forward, not backward.

Guillen added: “I swear to God on this, when Rick Hahn called me and said I don’t have the job, he said, ‘We found the next Ozzie Guillen.’”

While Hahn was trying to compliment Grifol, Guillen, who went 678-617 (.524) in eight seasons, sure doesn’t appreciate the comparison now. But I bet he’s getting a kick out of how bad the Sox are without him.

A lot of fans want Guillen to immediately replace Grifol if and when the team fires him, but why would he want that headache? If I were any of the coaches on Grifol’s staff, I wouldn’t want to take the job, either. You don’t want to have to answer questions about this team, this season, twice a day.

Now, in what could be his waning days in the job, Grifol took some time to do what a lot of failed coaches and managers do in a Reinsdorf regime: kiss up to the boss.

“I’ve said this before and I’m going to say it again,” Grifol said according to the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune. “This gets taken out of context and somehow it gets turned around over and over again, how people want to perceive it. Jerry’s a winner, OK? He’s an absolute winner. He’s a competitor. No, he’s not content. Who is?”

People have funny definitions of what makes someone a winner, especially when they work for a perennial loser.

The Bulls are under .500 since their actual, absolute winner, Michael Jordan, retired in 1998. The Sox have made the postseason just seven times in Reinsdorf’s 44 years of ownership. The 2005 playoffs were the only time they won a series, and 2020 and 2021 were the only years they reached the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.

But Grifol is speaking to an audience of one, even as he’s left dangling.

If the Sox get swept in Oakland this week, they could break the ’61 Phillies record at home Friday against the Cubs. The atmosphere will be somewhere between funereal and riotous.

I can’t imagine Grifol is on the top step for that one. How could you do that to him? How could you insult the fans’ intelligence by keeping him around?

It’s an awful situation for everyone, but this isn’t just on Grifol, though he’s certainly culpable for making a bad situation worse.

GO DEEPER

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While he’s focused on building up the farm system, Getz tried to add some defense to last year’s slapdash fielding team to make the major-league product more palatable, but he failed in a very public fashion. The core hitters who are always hurt were, surprise, injured again early in the season (Yoán Moncada has played only 11 games and is in the team’s top 10 for bWAR), and the season fell off the rails with a 3-22 start. The starting pitching, at least, has been solid, and Getz and his staff have bolstered the organization’s pitching outlook.

That’s all part of the upside to losing: It allows a front office the runway to improve an organization, sometimes fairly quickly. That was the plan after the 2016 season, and it worked until it didn’t. But in his first trade deadline, Getz’s moves were widely panned, and new baseball rules are limiting the Sox to the 10th pick in next year’s draft.

Money is going to be an issue. The Sox are having another attendance decline, and their TV broadcasts, which were a highlight for the team, are now thought of as the worst in baseball. The team’s deal with NBC Sports Chicago is ending and a new RSN (in partnership with the Bulls and Blackhawks) will debut this fall.

It’s going to be a long road back to respectability. At least there’s still the TV pre- and postgame shows, which were as unfailingly honest and critical as ever Sunday. Those shows, the Campfire Milkshake and the pitching in the minors are the only things the organization has going for it.

The White Sox lose and lose and lose, and they’ve gotten so much practice, they now might be the best to ever do it.

(Photo of Nicky Lopez reacting to Sunday’s loss: David Berding / Getty Images)

SAINT-DENIS, France — Once again, Noah Lyles didn’t get out of the blocks well. His reaction time tied for the worst in the eight-man field. Slow starts cost him in the first round, then again in the semifinals.

Such felt like a recipe for disaster with this stellar field, among the most loaded in Olympic history. Jamaicans Kishane Thompson and Oblique Seville were putting up crazy times. American Fred Kerley was on his game. Even defending Olympic champion Lamont Marcel Jacobs of Italy was in good form.

To see Lyles in fifth place 20 meters in felt like doom.

“It just goes to show,” Lyles said, “races aren’t won with starts.”

But a poor start might’ve been fortuitous. Because even with all his braggadocio, Lyles is an ultimate competitor at his core. He might come across as arrogant and showy, a recipe usually featuring but a teaspoon of substance. But Lyles is a dawg in the toughest sense. His heart’s at least as big as his mouth.

Sunday night, in an Olympic 100-meter final for the ages, it was revealed.

Trailing world-class burners, coming off consecutive losses, Lyles had to summon his absolute best. The slow start triggered his greatest asset. Lyles’ refusal to lose turned this loaded final into a historic one.

It’s the fastest he’s ever run: 9.79 seconds. Technically it was 9.784. He’s America’s first gold medalist in the 100 meters in 20 years. After winning the World Championships in 2023 and now an Olympic championship in 2024, he is the undisputed fastest man in the world.

Thompson took silver with a 9.789. Kerley, who won silver in the Tokyo Olympics, added a bronze to his resume with a personal best time of 9.81. Five of the top six times were personal bests, a season best, or a national record. Seville ran a 9.91 and finished last. Just a ridiculous octet of sprinters.

But Lyles said the moment is never too big for him, instead made for him. They don’t get bigger than what happened Sunday inside Stade de France. On the biggest stage of his life, with the globe watching, in a venue that delivered chills, Lyles made the moment his own.

His mouth wrote the check. His feet cashed it.

“I want my own shoe,” said Lyles, a long-time Adidas endorser. “I want my own trainer. … I want a sneaker. Ain’t no money in spikes. The money’s in sneakers.”

Lyles’ braggadocio isn’t empty. His calculated theatrics and thirst for attention might make him seem a bit less reverential. His arrogance prompts some to root against him.

But you don’t do what he’s done unless you’ve got heart.

Phase one of Lyles’ grand plan for immortality is complete. With the 100 meters in the bag, he now embarks on the 200 meters Monday.

Carl Lewis was the last American to do what Lyles is attempting: win gold in the 100 and 200 meters in the same Olympics. Lewis did it in 1984 in Los Angeles. Michael Johnson was the last American to pull off a sprint double. He won the 200 and 400 meters in 1996 in Atlanta.

The hardest part for Lyles was winning the gold in the 100 meters. The 200 is his main event. He’s the best in the world at it, and has been for this entire Olympic cycle.

“Pretty confident. I can’t lie,” Lyles said. “Kenny put up a fast time at trials. That definitely woke me up. I was very proud of him. He is definitely not going to take how he did here in the 100 lying down. He’s gonna say, ‘I’m going after it in the 200.’ My job is to make sure that …”

Lyles paused. Then he flashed his smile.

“I’ll just leave it there.”

Kerley, who’d been mostly quiet the whole press conference, clearly there out of bronze obligation, perked up and chimed in.

“Talk that s—,” Kerley said to Lyles.

“That man ain’t winning,” Lyles obliged. “None of them are winning. When I come off the turn, they will be depressed.”

What always takes precedence in the realm of banter is backing it up. Hubris is easier to swallow when justified.

The best chance to shut Lyles up was in the 100. Lyles finished seventh in the 100-meter final at the 2021 U.S. Olympic trials, failing to qualify for the Tokyo Games in the 100.

SEVENTH.

He and coach Lance Brauman went to work, turning him into an elite short-range sprinter.

NOAH LYLES IS THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE 🇺🇸

By four thousands of a second, Lyles eked by Kishane Thompson to win the gold by a whisker.

He is the first American man in 20 years to win the event.

🎥 @NBCOlympics pic.twitter.com/sKMer9mPOh

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— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) August 4, 2024

That’s the overlooked part of all this. What Lyles has done to become a world-class sprinter in the premier discipline is a testament to his immense talent and drive. He went into a new realm, which had its great talents, and decided to take them on.

He did so loudly, with a certitude that slighted the incumbents. Three years later, he sits alone on the throne vacated by Usain Bolt. He spoke about wanting to do it. He predicted he would do it. Then he did it. The D.C. area kid pulled a Marlo and took over another turf.

That’s why when he was walking through the mixed zone and saw Brauman, Lyles started jumping and yelling. He had one more run in him this night, through the maze of ropes, around a barrier and into the space crowded with media. So he could celebrate with the coach who helped him pull this off.

The Netflix cameras capturing it all for Season 2 of the docuseries “Sprint.”

At first, Lyles thought he didn’t win. It sure looked as if Thompson beat him. Lyles said he was ready to swallow his pride and eat the loss to a worthy opponent.

Immediately after the race, which was so close it needed technology to determine, Lyles went to Thompson and told him, “I think you got this one big dog.”

In his first two races of this Olympics, Lyles couldn’t recover from slow starts. In the first heat of the 100 meters Saturday, he got behind and couldn’t catch Great Britain’s Louie Hinchliffe. He said he underestimated the field, which he wouldn’t do again.

Saturday, in the semifinals, he shared a heat with Seville. This wasn’t just any heat. Those two have history.

Oblique Seville might sound like an old-school Cadillac, but ain’t nothing slow about him. And after finishing fourth against Lyles in the 2023 World Championships, the 23-year-old Jamaican has continued getting better.

He beat Lyles back in June at the Racers Grand Prix in Jamaica. Not only did Seville run a 9.82, but he shot Lyles a look in the process.

Lyles, of course, responded on X: “I’ll remember this. See you in Paris.”

Sunday, they lined up next to each other in a semifinal heat.

Seville got a much better start and looked to be comfortably ahead. But Lyles — after his hiccup in the first round and because of his rivalry with the Jamaicans — recovered much better. This time, Lyles chased down the leader. He looked ready for a battle.

A composite image of the men’s 100m. (Photo: Hector Vivas / Getty Images)

He ran a 9.83 despite a slow start. Still, he didn’t overtake Seville, who ran a personal-best 9.81.

So when Lyles did it a third time, getting out of the blocks slow, the packed crowd had every reason to believe he’d lose. Some 20 meters in, he was no better than fifth.

But Lyles has been talking a lot about transcending the sport, elevating track to a new level. He’s talked about wanting more spirited competition with his cohorts. More trash talking. More races. More of the best facing off. This, essentially, is what he wanted.

He’d have to fight for this one. So Lyles hit another gear. The gear the great ones have. He made this race not about technique. Or the purest form. Or the most talent. It was about will. It was about the time-honored tradition of foot race being the measure of a man.

He caught the leaders. They pushed him. He pushed them. In the end was a finish, a moment, that will be remembered for generations.

When the results were in, even Lyles was stunned.

“Everybody in the field came out knowing that they could win this race. I didn’t do this against a slow field. I did this against the best of the best, on the biggest stage, with the biggest pressure. And seeing my name was like, ‘Oh my gosh! There it is!”

The difference proved to be a perfectly timed lean by Lyles. By .005 seconds, his chest crossed the line before Thompson. Lyles won because of his heart.

Required reading

(Photo: Cameron Spencer / Getty Images)