Why Noah Lyles Beat Kishane Thompson To Men's 100m Gold Despite Both Clocking 9.79 Seconds

World champion Noah Lyles roared to victory in 9.79sec to claim gold in a dramatic men's Olympic 100m final in Paris on Sunday. Lyles won in the closest Olympic 100m finish in modern history as just five thousandths of a second separated him from Jamaica's Kishane Thompson. Both were given the rounded-up time of 9.79sec but the American's name carried the all-important (.784) to Thompson's (.789.) It made Lyles the first American, male or female, to win the event since Justin Gatlin took gold in the 2004 Athens Games.

"It's the one I wanted," said Lyles, whose winning time was a personal best. "It's the hard battle, it's the amazing opponents.

"Everybody's healthy, everybody came prepared for the fight and I wanted to prove that I'm the man amongst all of them. I'm the wolf amongst wolves."

Lyles' victory was only confirmed after a photo-finish.

The American said of the wait for the final results: "I went up to Kishane and I was like, 'I'm going to be honest, bro, I think you had that one'.

"And I was fully prepared to see his name pop up and to see my name pop up, I'm like goodness gracious. I'm incredible."

Lyles added: "It's been a rollercoaster, ups and downs.

"I'm usually a guy who likes to come out blazing in all my rounds, especially in the 200m. But the 100m, it's my first time here on the Olympic stage."

A lifetime of preparation and 4 years of training comes down to FIVE ONE THOUSANDTHS OF A SECOND.

0.005 seconds!!!

FIVE milliseconds.

It takes ONE HUNDRED MILLISECONDS TO BLINK! It's incomprehensiblepic.twitter.com/DGyWyyJ9Ol

- Not 'fresh enough' -

The relatively unknown Thompson, the fastest man this year with a best of 9.77sec, said he hadn't been "fresh enough" over the final 30 metres.

"I couldn't really see