Culture
Noah Lyles' mouth wrote the check. On the Olympics stage, his feet cashed it
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.”
The photo finish at the end. (Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP via Getty Images)
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
— 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)
new video loaded: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects
By Jennifer Harlan, Sadie Stein, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Edward Vega
December 18, 2025
“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
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