Noah Lyles of the United States claimed the gold in the Olympic 100-meter final in Paris on Sunday.

Kishane Thompson of Jamaica took silver and another American, Fred Kerley, won bronze.

Lyles is the first American to win the event since Justin Gatlin won at the 2004 Athens Games.

He started slow but accelerated through the finish to beat Thompson by five-thousandths of a second, with a new personal best time of 9.79 seconds.

"It's the one I wanted, it's the hard battle, it's the amazing opponents," he said. 

Closest Olympic 100m finish in modern history

Lyles' victory was only confirmed after a photo finish, with his fellow American Kerley claiming bronze in 9.81.

That was a thousandth of a second faster than Akani Simbine of South Africa who ended fourth, setting a new national record of 9.82 seconds.

Defending champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy, heavily strapped due to injury, finished fifth in 9.85 and, such was the quality of the race, that eighth-placed Oblique Seville of Jamaica clocked 9.91 seconds, meaning all eight finalists were separated by just 0.12 of a second.

"Everybody came prepared for the fight and I wanted to prove that I'm the man among all of them, I'm the wolf among wolves," Lyles said.

It was the first time eight men have broken 10 seconds in a wind-legal 100 meters race.

lo/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

Correction, August 6, 2024: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of sprinter Akani Simbine. DW apologizes for the error.