Olympics 2024: Noah Lyles’ 100m gold begs question over whether rules should change - Paul Lewis

THREE KEY THINGS

• American Noah Lyles won the men’s 100m final at the Paris Olympics
• Jamaican Kishane Thompson’s foot crossed the line before Lyles
• By Olympic and international rules, the winner is the athlete whose torso, not foot, crosses the line first

Paul Lewis has been a journalist since the last ice age. He has covered Rugby World Cups, America’s Cups, Olympic & Commonwealth Games and more.

OPINION

There’s something that doesn’t sit quite right about Noah Lyles’ gold medal in the 100m in Paris.

He won the gold fair and square, according to Olympic and international rules which state the winner is the person whose torso crosses the line first. Lyles finished like a freight train, clearly going faster than anyone else.

However, as the photo finish revealed, he was only third if the gold medal was awarded on the basis of whose foot crossed the finish line first. Fair play. The art of the dip is no small matter, and Lyles dipped perfectly, getting his chest home.

But, just a split-second moment, how can it be that someone physically gets to the line first and gets a silver? Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson was the visual winner, begging the question of whether the rules should change.

This is not aimed at Lyles – even if he is one of those annoying “look at me” diva-sprinters who carries on like a pork chop when a camera is on him, thinking that sort of face-pulling, peacock behaviour might make him a star and/or give him an edge.

Again, he won according to the rules (and he will win the 200m in a canter) but, even though his time was faster by five thousandths of a second, he didn’t breach the line first.

It’s the kind of contradiction that marks his achievement with an asterisk of garish colour. He won but … did he really? What should we believe? The timekeepers or the photo mechanics?

The chest has been the accepted arbiter in photo finishes for decades. The IAAF, track and field’s governing body, rules confirm: “The athletes shall be placed in the order in which any part of their bodies (i.e. torso, as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the nearer edge of the finish line”.

Noah Lyles claimed the gold medal in the men's 100m in Paris. Photo / Photosport

Maybe, however, it should be the feet. It’s a foot race, not a torso race.

Dipping at the line slows the athlete. Show me someone who can run faster leaning forward and I will show you The Flash.

Why not let sprinters remain entirely vertical and finish at top speed, instead of having to slow marginally to dip? Diving is even worse; it’s the track, not the pool. A dip, mismanaged, can be a prelude to a dive.

Using the chest is partly designed to stop athletes flinging themselves headfirst at the line – so the head is ruled out as a winning part of the body, as are the arms and using them to grab gold.

Feet are a different matter. No one would dive at the line feet first. There have, however, been Olympic examples of athletes lunging or diving headfirst, usually controversially.

US 400m specialist David Neville did so to grab a bronze as he was being shaded by the Bahamas’ Chris Brown at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Four years later, in London, another Bahamian, 400m runner Shaunae Miller, was vilified for successfully diving at the line to take Olympic gold ahead of the much-decorated Allyson Felix, the latter clearly overtaking her at the death.

Miller was surprised at the vehemence of the public outcry and, in her case, her dive came as she was clearly being overtaken by Felix. Her dive looked illegal but wasn’t. Not illegal, maybe, but questionable. Her torso got there first but, in the photo-finish, you can see Felix’s feet crossing the line first, Miller’s strung out behind her as she dived to get her torso across.

Again, them’s the rules and Neville, Miller, and Lyles played to them perfectly. However, my guess is that Felix and Brown (and Thompson) would unhesitatingly back any move to outlaw the dive and the dip and include the feet as a part of the body that can win gold.

Track and field are the only Olympic sports which carry winning to this nth degree. Swimming, for example, allows gold medal dead heats. They confine timing to hundredths of a second instead of thousandths, even though the technology is available. That’s because they acknowledge that no matter how carefully a pool is built, the length of lanes can vary by centimetres and the wash of the pool can affect individuals.

In football, the VAR technology doesn’t differentiate between body parts. It could be ankle or an eyebrow – doesn’t matter, you’re offside.

Maybe the best thing that could have happened in Paris was a gold medal each for Lyles and Thompson, a marriage of the visual and the electronic. Yes, Lyles was faster – but only if measured by chest rather than feet.

Maybe it’s time to have the rules rewritten to include the feet or, better still, make them the final call.