Athletics: Noah Lyles, 3rd in the 200m at the Olympics, suffers from Covid

Noah Lyles, the 200m bronze medallist at the Paris Olympics on Thursday, told the media after the race that he was suffering from Covid. A brilliant winner of the 100m on Sunday, Lyles saw Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo win on Thursday in the half-lap of the track, a first for an African over the distance.

Lyles tested positive Tuesday morning, he said in the mixed zone. “I was quickly quarantined near the Olympic Village and tried to take approved medication,” he continued.

Tebogo: “I am not an arrogant or loud person like Noah”

“I wanted to race. I was told it was possible, so I just stayed away from the others and took lap after lap,” he said, after racing his semi-final on Wednesday. “Of the last three days, this day was by far the best. I can’t say I’m 100 percent, but more like 90 or 95 percent.”

He was evacuated in a wheelchair

Covid has been a fixture at the Paris Olympics since the competitions began two weeks ago. In a report dated August 6, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) surveillance system, “which analyzes information from the media and other verified sources, indicated that at least 40 Olympic athletes had tested positive for Covid-19 or other respiratory diseases,” the WHO said on Wednesday.

How Tebogo calmed the kangaroo Lyles: the 200m final on video

Lyles, 27, was aiming for an unprecedented quadruple of gold in Paris in the 100, 200, 4×100 and 4x400m, having started perfectly on Sunday with a narrow victory in the 100m by 5 thousandths of a second ahead of Jamaican Kishane Thompson.

On Thursday, he lay on the track for a long time after crossing the finish line, before being evacuated in a wheelchair. He had presented himself before the race in the call room wearing a surgical mask. Lyles had already won Olympic bronze in the 200m in Tokyo in 2021, his last defeat over the distance before arriving in Paris. Another American, Kenny Bednarek, took silver in the 200m.