To the surprise of many, Letsile Tebogo of Botswana won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics yesterday in the 200-meter dash. In doing so, he became the first athlete from his country to win an Olympic gold medal, and the first runner from Africa to win this particular event.
Kenny Bednarek of the United States won the silver medal and Noah Lyles—who was widely expected to win—walked away with the bronze.
After the race, reporters asked if Mr. Tebogo aspired to be the face of track and field in light of his victory.
“I think, for me, I can’t be the face of athletics because I’m not an arrogant or a loud person like Noah [Lyles],” he said. “I believe Noah is the face of athletics.”
The words may sound harsh, but it is not hard to understand where Mr. Tebogo is coming from. Mr. Lyles, who won the gold medal earlier this week in the 100-meter dash, is a U.S. Olympic athlete who features prominently in advertisements and stars in the documentary series “The Unseen Journey.” His charisma captivates audiences.
In Paris, Mr. Lyles bounded out onto the track after his name was announced to the thundering crowd. A ball of energy, he screamed and hopped past other runners down the lane, lifting his arms and soliciting cheers from the stadium before the race began.
It was a stark contrast to Mr. Tebogo and Mr. Lyles’s teammate, Mr. Bednarek. Neither drew attention to themselves as they made their way to the starting blocks.
Mr. Lyles’s ostentation is not limited to the track. It spills out in his interviews.
After winning the 100-meter dash, Mr. Lyles predicted he would win the 200. “I’ll be winning…. None of them is winning,” he said. “When I come off the turn, they will be depressed.”
Last year, he told USA Today that he knew he would eventually break Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt’s 200-meter world record.
But look beyond the boasting and you’ll see that there is a lot more to Mr. Lyles than the persona he embodies while on the track or needling his opponents.
Running uphill
As a child, Mr. Lyles spent time in the hospital receiving treatment for asthma. In class, he struggled to keep up, in no small part because he had to contend with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He participated in many sports, including gymnastics, and eventually found his way to the track at age 12.
Mr. Lyles did not attend college and pursued a professional career as a sprinter in 2016, finding sponsorships and success that year. He went on to win two gold medals at the 2019 world championships before winning a bronze medal in the 200-meter dash at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. He won three gold medals in the 2023 world championships and was dubbed “the fastest man in the world.”
After winning the 100-meter dash in Paris, he posted on X: “I have Asthma, allergies, dyslexia, ADD, anxiety, and Depression. But I will tell you that what you have does not define what you can become. Why Not You!”
Mr. Lyles has been open about his struggles with mental illness, publicly revealing his use of antidepressants in 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic and the death of George Floyd took a toll on his mental well-being that year, and he told his social media followers that he worked on it in therapy.
“I knew there were a lot of people out there like me who were too scared to say something or start that journey,” Mr. Lyles told The Washington Post in 2021. “I wanted them to know, if you see me in a big light, I want you to know that it’s okay to not feel good, and you can go out and talk with somebody professionally or even get on medication. This is a serious issue. You don’t want to wake up one day and think, ‘I don’t want to be here anymore.’”
Mr. Lyles is nothing if not authentic. While his swagger and bold predictions may at first seem arrogant, as they did to Mr. Tebogo, I find that they simply reflect his self-confidence. Deep down, I believe Mr. Lyles’s challenges have made him quite humble.
“Humility is everything,” Pope Francis said in a general audience this past May, calling it “the path to salvation.”
“Where there is no humility, there is war, there is discord, there is division,” Francis said. “Whereas pride and arrogance swell the human heart, making us appear to be more than we are, humility restores everything to its correct dimension: We are wonderful creatures, but we are limited, with qualities and flaws.”
Indeed, it is Mr. Lyles’s faith that grounds his confidence in himself and enables him to be open about his struggles.
“I believe that God has put forth everything that I need to succeed. If there is a challenge, then he is giving me the challenge because he knows I have the tools and resources to be able to overcome that,” he said in an interview last year.
“It’s the idea that each moment was made for me, not the other way around,” he said. “Everybody thinks, ‘I’ve got to get ready for this big moment,’ you’re thinking wrong. The moment was made for you to do something special.”
In the moments following the 100-meter dash in Paris, it appeared Mr. Lyles had finished second to Kishane Thompson from Jamaica.
“We were waiting for the names to come up, and I have to be honest, I came over and I was like, ‘I think you got that one big dog,’” Mr. Lyles said, gesturing toward Mr. Thompson during a post-race press conference. “I’m really going to have to swallow my pride, which I don’t have a problem doing. Respect deserves respect. And everybody in the field came out knowing they could win this race. That’s the mindset we have to have. Iron sharpens iron, of course.”
He fielded questions about the contest, the upcoming race, about therapy and about his spirituality. But after the 200-meter dash, he could not participate in the press conference. Mr. Lyles revealed that he had Covid-19. (While some criticized his participation afterward, Mr. Tebogo and other athletes seemed not to take issue with it.)
“First I want to thank God for getting me through this entire Olympics!” he posted on X, congratulating Mr. Tebogo and Mr. Bednarek. “It is not the Olympics I dreamed of but it has left me with so much Joy in my heart. I hope everyone enjoyed the show. Whether you were rooting for me or against me, you have to admit you watched, didn’t you?”
We certainly did.
