Noah Lyles tested positive for Covid but kept it secret from his 200m rivals

American, who was put in wheelchair after shock defeat, says he did not want to cause panic or give rivals an edge by admitting he was ill

Noah Lyles revealed that he tested positive for Covid on Tuesday but kept it secret from his competitors following his failed attempt to emulate Usain Bolt’s 100m-200m Olympic sprint double.
The American, who had won the 100m by just 0.005sec on Sunday, said that he woke in the early hours of Tuesday with a sore throat, chills and aches but still lined up in the 200m final, before slumping at the side of the track after an emphatic defeat by Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo.
Lyles did still run 19.70sec to emulate his Olympic bronze medal of 2021 but said that his performance was impacted and that he felt light-headed and experienced chest pain immediately following the race. He required medical treatment trackside and, after being briefly placed in a wheelchair, recovered to speak with media from behind a mask.
“I do have Covid,” he said. “I tested positive at around 5am on Tuesday morning. There were a lot of symptoms. We tested it and it came back positive. We quickly quarantined to a hotel near the village to get me on as much medication as we legally could to make sure my body was able to just keep the momentum going.
“I was going to compete regardless. We just stayed away from everybody and took it round by round. This is the best I’ve felt out of the last three days. I’m not 100 per cent – but 90 to 95 per cent.”
Asked if his competitors, including American team-mate Kenny Bednarek, and those he raced in Wednesday night’s semi-final, had known, Lyles admitted that he had largely kept his virus secret.
“We tried to keep this as close to my chest, most of the people who knew were the medical staff, my coach, my mom and my family,” he said. “We didn’t want everybody going into a panic, we wanted them to be able to compete. We wanted to be able to make it as discreet as possible. 
“You never want to tell your competitors you are sick – why would you give them an edge over you? It definitely affected my performance. I was coughing through the night last night. I’m more proud of myself than anything – to come out and get the bronze medal with Covid.”
19.45 🚀😮Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo is the men’s 200m Olympic champion! He wins his nation’s first EVER Olympic gold. 👏Noah Lyles has to settle for the bronze medal. #BBCOlympics #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/3sFKcMgF1R
Tebogo, who began celebrating Bolt-style some metres before the finish, would still have taken some beating. Lyles’s personal best is 19.31sec and Tebogo dominated the race from start to finish, producing the fifth-fastest 200m in history to run 19.46sec and win his country’s first Olympic gold. 
The 21-year-old’s closest challenge was Bednarek, who beat Lyles to repeat the silver medal he had won in Tokyo with a time of 19.62sec.
Lyles said that the USA team will decide on Friday whether he lines up in the 4x100m relay later that day.
Oliver Brown