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So lightning does not strike twice. Noah Lyles stormed from behind to win gold in the 100m on Sunday night but was given no chance to do so in the 200m final, won by Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo in a major upset at the Stade de France. Tebogo had time to thump his chest as he crossed the line in a new personal best of 19.46 seconds, ahead of the USA’s Kenny Bednarek and with Lyles in third, a bronze adding to his 100m gold.
For Lyles, the dream of emulating Usain Bolt and winning both 100m and 200m titles at the Olympics did not materialise. It may have been over before the race, with the 27-year-old leaving the track in a wheelchair to alert suspicions that he was suffering from an illness. Within moments, US track and field officials confirmed Lyles had tested positive for Covid on Monday, but ran anyway. He was around half a second down on his personal best.
But even a fit and firing Lyles may have been powerless to stop Tebogo. The 21-year-old ran the fifth-fastest 200m of all time to win Botswana’s first gold medal at the Olympics. A milestone victory for Africa came with personal significance. He dedicated a dominant victory to his mother, Elizabeth Seratiwa, who died in May. After crossing the line, Tebogo removed one of his orange spikes and turned its heel to the camera, revealing that they were adorned with the date of his mother’s birthday.
She died at the age of just 43, following a short illness. Amid the shock and the grief, Tebogo considered quitting the sport. “When I first heard the news, I thought my career was over,” he said. Tebogo didn’t run for a month after her death but she became the reason he continued. It was enough to make him tick and the Olympics gave him the chance to represent her on the track in the biggest race of his life.
“It’s basically me carrying her through every stride that I take inside the field,” he said. “She’s watching up there, and she’s the happiest person in the world.”
Tebogo had warned Lyles and the field of his talents, winning the semi-final with the fastest time on Tuesday and beating the “fastest man in the world” just days after his coronation. Except, Tebogo noticed something was wrong. “I was surprised,” he said. “Yesterday, I had one of my worst days ever.” But he still beat Lyles. “It showed me that he’s not in his best shape,” Tebogo shrugged.
Lyles had Covid, it turned out, but was assessed by the US track and field medical team and was allowed to decide himself if he was going to enter the final. Sport has moved on from the Covid regulations during the height of the pandemic that stopped athletes from competing following a positive test and forced them to isolate.
“I still wanted to run,” he said. “We decided it was still possible, so we just stayed away from everybody and tried to take it round by round. I knew if I wanted to come out here and win I would have to give everything I’ve had from the get-go. I didn’t have any time to save energy. That was the strategy. It definitely affected my performance. I am more proud of myself than anything. Coming out and getting the bronze medal with Covid.”
The sight of Lyles warming up in a face mask was a boost to Tebogo, who arrived at his first Olympics with no expectations. He sees 2028 as the Olympics he can “dominate”.
Instead, that dominance started early as Lyles was dethroned. The 200 was his race, or as the American has put it: “The 200 is my wife and the 100 is my mistress.”
His victory in the 100 took Lyles’s stardom to another level, just as he said it would. That his victory over Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson came by just five-thousands of a second and after not leading for the entire race was part of the show. Lyles was slow out of the gate but was the fastest when crossing the line, showing it’s not how you start a race but how you finish.
The 200, though, was a safer bet: a three-time world champion, including back-to-back in 2022 and 2023, the 200 allowed him more time to build up to his top speed. It’s less about tactics than its shorter, more unpredictable cousin the 100m – usually, speed and endurance comes out on top and Lyles arrived at Paris convinced he was the best in the world in the combination of both.
The challenger in lane seven, though, was the one to watch. Tebogo was assured, leaning into his stride immediately as he set around the bend. Lyles found himself behind both Bednarek and Erriyon Knighton, but the bolt of light blue to his right was the bigger concern.
“We knew if you could get a good curve today, we would possibly win the race,” Tebogo said. “When I saw that Noah wasn’t there on my left and it was just me and Kenny, I knew it was just the two of us in front.”
With gold in his sights, Tebogo was running for something bigger, and carried his mother across the line to make history for his nation.
