The biggest personality in world athletics remains its fastest man, Noah Lyles living up to a bravado which only he seemed to believe in.
The American had said he had come to Paris aiming to emulate the sprint treble he had pulled off at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
But he had lost out to Britain’s Louie Hinchliffe in his heat and hardly marked himself out as the 100metre favourite in his semi-final run.
And yet the 27-year-old, who had leapt onto the track as though he owned the Stade de France as he was announced to a packed-out crowd, saved his best for the final, which ended in a blanket finish.
Pre-race, he bounced around with a brashness which has become a feature of him, at the time what seemed like a desperate final throw of the dice after his earlier round struggles.
Lyles’ winning time of 9.79seconds was a personal best and the same time as Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, the two separated by just five thousandths of a second. It was all the more remarkable because, at 40metres, he had been dead last
It also resulted in the first American Olympic winner of the 100m since Justin Gatlin 20 years ago, and he ripped off his name badge and raised it to a packed crowd in the immediate aftermath.
Thompson had been the form man this season and in the preceding rounds, the one caveat being that this was his first major championships, and he seemed to tense up in the latter stages of the race.
It proved an electric final, the time of the last-placed man, Oblique Seville, a former schoolboy rival of Thompson, still a rapid time of 9.91s.
It had been billed as a rivalry between Jamaica and the United States but ended with the US coming out on top with Fred Kerley the other member of the podium.
And Lyles warned he had his sights on more gold. He said: “There’s plenty more. I hope you guys like Noah because I’ve got a lot more coming.”
Earlier, Keely Hodgkinson, the perpetual bridesmaid of two laps of the track with silver in her last major championships, has long been seen as a banker for gold.
And she did little to dispel that as she cruised into tomorrow’s semi-finals but there was a shock as Jemma Reekie, the second fastest woman in the world behind Hodgkinson this year, failed to make the final. The 17-year-old Phoebe Gill, the third Team GB runner, also missed out on the top eight.
Many had hoped the rivalry between Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen would wait until the final of the 1500m – there is clearly no love lost between the pair – but the Coe-Ovett of their generation were drawn together in their semi-final.
They were clearly a class apart from the rest of the field and Ingebrigtsen twice appeared to look towards Kerr down the home straight as he narrowly won his semi-final ahead of Kerr.
