“This is by far the best I’ve felt out of the last 3 days. I still wouldn’t say I’m 100%, but I’d definitely say I’m closer to 90-95%,” blasted Noah Lyles, gathering every ounce of air in his lungs. After all, he had to use his strength to shout, as his lungs were not in sync. Why? The 27-year-old had COVID in Paris before entering the men’s 200m final event. A pretty shocker, though! Yet, he ran with his “90-95%” on the track and finished in the third position. Definitely, it was not the result Lyles would have wanted. But he settled for this. But three months later, everything seems to be opaque. 

No, Noah Lyles is still the third-place finisher in the men’s 200m final at the Paris Olympics, and he has no issue keeping the bronze medal. But did he make a full disclosure in August, when he could have? Well, it appears not—the Sprint Season 2 has a whole different version.

Today Netflix released the second edition of the Sprint docuseries, capturing the moments from the Paris Olympics as well. Naturally, it includes all behind-the-scenes happenings of the events. It also captured Noah’s confession to his fiancée (then girlfriend), Junelle Bromfield, about having COVID. But soon something unexpected panned out in the turn of events. The next scene showed Lyles saying, “I will make sure not to tell the media,” as a reply to Bromfield’s question. And what was her question? “You gonna tell people that?” Now, a quick forward to the game day at Stade de France. 

Noah Lyles entered the men’s 200m event in the Paris Olympics as the favorite. He had plenty of records to back the tag. And, because of his numerous interviews, practically every track and field athlete recognizes the event as Noah’s “girlfriend.” He also had to modify the color of his medal from the Tokyo Olympics. So a lot of goals had been there for him. But on August 8, Noah’s 19.70 second-finish earned him third place. That result ultimately sent shockwaves. But the major surprise had yet to come. 

After finishing his event, Lyles lay down on the Mondo track, trying hard to breathe. Nobody could have found anything abnormal there, as they had spotted him in normal mode just a few seconds before. But soon, the medics escorted him and took him out of the ground. Later, the Olympian appeared in the mixed zone wearing a KN95 mask. This allowed for a lot of queries. However, he closed the talk by stating, “I tested positive around 5 a.m. Tuesday morning.” He also confessed to leaving the Games Village and entering the quarantine zone as soon as the doctors confirmed his disease. 

Noah Lyles also mentioned that he was given any medications he could lawfully take without causing complications during post-race drug testing. According to a representative from the USA Track & Field, he used Paxlovid, among other drugs. The officials of Team USA confirmed that they knew everything from the first minute. They also admitted to receiving a green signal from the Game officials regarding Noah Lyles’s participation despite having an infectious disease. But why did he want to hide the news from the media? He had two reasons behind it. 

Noah Lyles could have invited a lot of issues

In his further statement to back his participation reason, Noah Lyles claimed, “One, we didn’t want everybody to go into a panic; we wanted them to be able to compete.” That seemed justified. But his second reasoning had something different mixed up. He explained, “We wanted to be able to make it as discreet as possible. And you never want to tell your competitors you’re sick. Why would you give them an edge over you?” But wouldn’t his decision to continue have brought a lot of issues? As per Dr. Art Caplan, it could certainly have. 

Being the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, Dr. Kaplan has thorough knowledge of the matter. He shared a few of them when asked about Lyles’s decision to continue despite having COVID. He eventually conceded, “The whole point of having health and medical expertise at any event including the Olympics is to insure the health, short and long term, of the athletes, staff, coaches and officials. Anyone with covid should be isolating. Anyone at high risk from covid should not be sanctioned to compete.” 

Amid the backlash, the Olympic winner emphasized that he had adhered to all quarantine rules. But a little of it came into the public.