Olympic Games 2024: Part of the body wins races not feet, How Noah Lyles claimed gold in 100m final despite not crossing line first
The American athlete secured a thrilling victory in the 100m final at the Paris Olympics on Sunday after snatching the gold medal from Kishane Thompson in a photo finish
Noah Lyles can now call himself the fastest man in the world – but he has his torso to thank just as much as his feet.
The American athlete secured a thrilling victory in the 100m final at the Paris Olympics on Sunday after snatching the gold medal from Kishane Thompson in a photo finish.
What part of the body wins races and why is it not feet? Noah Lyles claims gold in 100m final despite not crossing the line first
Noah Lyles can now call himself the fastest man in the world – but he has his torso to thank just as much as his feet.
The American athlete secured a thrilling victory in the 100m final at the Paris Olympics on Sunday after snatching the gold medal from Kishane Thompson in a photo finish.
He beat the Jamaican by just 0.005 seconds following a dramatic surge in what was the fastest collective race in the event’s history.
The pair both recorded a time of 9.79 seconds, with Thompson and even Fred Kerley having their foot on the line before Lyles.
Even Lyles himself later admitted that he told Thompson ‘I think you’ve got the Olympics, big dog’, before the results were confirmed.
However, despite that, it was track and field’s greatest showman who was crowned the new 100m gold medalist – here’s why…
How are winners of sprint races decided?
Olympic rules and regulations state that the torso is the part of the athlete’s body that determines the winner, not the feet as assumed.
The competitor whose chest reaches the closest edge of the finish line is the winner, meaning a foot on the line first means nothing.
It’s why athletes lean when they approach the line – however, the finish is restricted to the torso, so throwing an arm out does nothing.
The head doesn’t count either, despite sprinters usually thrusting their necks over the line when they try to move their chests forward.
This is what proved the difference in Paris for Lyles, with his chest meeting the mark to claim the USA’s first 100m gold since 2004.
Lyles said: “I continued to run like I would win it. Something told me: ‘I need to lean.’ It is that type of race. It was crazy.”
Is diving legal in athletics?
Yes, it is – but it also comes with a major risk.
Not being able to win races with a head, limbs or feet prevents athletes from using shortcuts to sneak a victory.
Lunges are the most common aid for competitors near the line, but full-scale dives are also unique but infrequent ways to win.
American sprinter David Neville dove for the 400m bronze medal in 2008, with GB’s Alastair Chalmers also throwing himself over the white line to qualify for the semi-finals of the men’s 400-metre hurdles in Paris.
The reason more runners don’t dive more is that while the start of a dive is marginally faster than running, the moment an athlete’s feet leave the ground they slow down.
This means that if a sprinter dives at the wrong moment they will be more likely to lose a place rather than gain it.
How are photo finishes captured?
With events such as the 100m final, it is near-impossible in real time to know which athletes have got their torso across the line first.
A common misconception is that judges utilise slow motion from a video recording when it’s actually a series of photographs.
Photofinish was used as far back as the 1948 Olympics in London, with what was known as the ‘Magic Eye’ helping confirm the winner.
As athletes get faster and records are continuously broken, more sophisticated technology has been needed.
Usain Bolt’s Olympic record in 2008 was recorded by a camera capable of recording 3,000 images per second.
That has now been increased in Paris, with the Games using imaging with Fully Automatic Timing to finalise the order.
Cameras from Swiss brand Omega that showed Lyles had beaten Thompson to gold are capable of taking 40,000 frames per second.
Those are then combined to enable the system to recreate a full picture of just whose body crossed the line first.
Source: talkSport
