While you were sleeping: 5 things to know after Lyles, Pan speed to gold at Paris Olympics
- Noah Lyles proves fastest in the men’s 100 metres on the track while four Chinese legs of 100m in the pool end an American monopoly
You can measure your life in Olympic cycles, or more specifically an Olympic event that entrances you every four years.
The men’s 100 metres sprint, crowning the world’s fastest human, has that allure. While few readers will recall Jesse Owens winning in 1936 in real time, some will have caught Jim Hines (1968), and the likes of Carl Lewis (1984, 1988), Linford Christie (1992) and Usain Bolt (2008, 2012, 2016) remain vivid for many.
Overnight, the race to join that list lived up to its billing and laid down another marker of time.
Also in action were some of the fencers Hong Kong’s Cheung Ka-long beat to win gold, while some of the swimmers who vied with the city’s star swimmer Siobhan Haughey were back for more. And there were familiar fears for fans of Chinese volleyball.
If you slept through it, let us tell you more.
Fastest on Earth
Paris did its best to dramatise this blue riband event of track and field at a buzzing Stade de France, as if it were needed, then the sound and light cut to silence and the starter’s pistol. Over to the protagonists.
