COVID-stricken Noah Lyles collapses after getting bronze, one of 8 US medals at Olympic track
Noah Lyles lost the Olympic 200 meters, falling to Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo, then collapsing on the track and being carted off in a wheelchair
SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — The first sign of trouble Thursday night came when Noah Lyles started rounding the curve in the Olympic final of the 200 meters — the sprint that has always been his best race.
Normally at the curve, Lyles starts making up ground, then pulling away from what have been, for the last three years, game but overmatched contenders.
This time, his momentum stalled. Instead of Lyles reeling in the runner two lanes to his right, Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, Tebogo pulled farther way. The American favorite, who had gone three years without losing in the 200, labored into the finish and collapsed onto the track after ending up in third.
The insidious specter of COVID, the killer virus that upended the globe four years ago and made the last Olympics part of its collateral damage, struck at the Paris Games, too.
