By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South Africa’s Akani Simbine narrowly missed out on a Paris Olympics medal in the men’s 100m final despite sprinting to a new national record.
Noah Lyles roared to victory in 9.79 to claim the gold, becoming the the first American – male or female – to win the event since Justin Gatlin won it at the 2004 Athens Games.
Simbine finished in fourth after clocking a time of 9.82, breaking his own South African record of 9.84, which he set in July 2021 in Hungry.
Kishane Thompson won the silver medal despite clocking the same time as Lyles. In the end he was just five-thousandths of a second off Lyles’ pace.
Fred Kerley beat Simbine to the bronze medal after he ran a 9.81 race.
It’s heartbreak for a third successive Games for Simbine, who clocked his fastest time in an Olympic final. He finished fifth at Rio 2016 and fourth at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Simbine qualified for the 100m final with a run of 9.87 in the semi-finals and knew he needed a personal best in the final to stand any chance of a medal.
All athletes were virtually in a straight line as they hit the 60m and surged for the line. Lyles and Thompson, in lanes four and seven, looked like they might have just snatched it, while Kerley and Simbine were locked as well.
It took what felt like an eternity to separate them. Then, up came the confirmation. Lyles had taken gold in 9.79, the first time he’d gone under 9.80. Thomson won silver also in 9.79 but was 0.005 of a second behind. Kerley had taken the bronze in 9.81 and Simbine was a hundredth of a second behind him. Eighth place went to Jamaican Oblique Seville in 9.91. Extraordinary.