Kung Fu Kenny has repeated his feat from three years ago! Winning silver at the 33rd Olympic Games, Kenny Bednarek startled not only his fans with his breakneck speed but also his national teammate Noah Lyles. The reigning world champ in the men’s 200m distance was the favorite to win gold in the event in Paris, but with that not happening, Bednarek seized the opportunity to send out a sneering message to his critics and foes alike.

Scenes of a breathless Lyles at the end of the race were a sight that raised several eyebrows. When it came to light that he ran with COVID, fans rushed in to make their disappointment heard over Noah’s “irresponsible” decision to compete despite the issue. But Bednarek, on the other hand, isn’t one to budge right now.

In a recent post on X by Chris Chavez from just minutes ago, the Tulsa native made it clear that he’s not going to let his opponent’s misfortune affect his own triumphant glee. Being asked in the post-race interview about how he felt about Noah deciding to run the race despite his illness, Kenny said it isn’t something he’ll be spending much thought on. “I don’t care. If I get sick, I’m fine. I don’t view those things as a big deal. I’m healthy, I do everything I can to make sure my body is healthy. It doesn’t really bother me at all,” Bednarek sought to shrug the entire thing off.

But Kenny didn’t stop there. Keeping a firm grip on the fleeting emotions on the grand stage is what brought him his latest achievement, is what he said in his own social media post from minutes ago. Moments after running 19.62 in the City of Love, Bednarek wrote on social media “Talk is cheap. Nerves of steel, dripped in platinum,” as he underscored that fans shouldn’t have let him fool them by his calm demeanor before the race.

At June’s US Olympic Team Trials, Kenny ran a personal best of 19.59 seconds in the men’s 200m final to win the event and also punch his ticket to Paris. Naturally, he was one of the favorites to win the race at the French capital, but probably not a lot of people were still willing to wager that he’d be able to pull victory over Lyles as well. Lyles came in third clocking 19.70, and Kenny seems to believe that too much hype about anything isn’t the way to go. However, this wouldn’t be the first time, these two track powerhouses clashed against one another, both while racing as well as by exchanging words.

Kenny Bednarek finally has the boasting right over Noah Lyles

Since 2020, this is only the second time that Bednarek won over Lyles in the 200m distance. The last time it happened was three years ago in the same tournament he won silver just a while ago. There too, Kenny won the silver, while Lyles, slower by a heartbeat of 0.06 seconds, had to settle for bronze. And now, Lyles being at the top of his game or not, the same result was repeated again in the City of Love, only this time, Noah was slower to his colleague by 0.08 seconds. However, while the two American athletes might get entangled in yet another war of words in the next few days, it was certainly someone else who stole the show. In tonight’s race, Bednarek was left in the dust only by Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo, who won gold with a blistering 19.46-second run.

With that, Tebogo became the first African athlete to win the men’s 200m gold on the big stage. After the race, the 21-year-old said, “It was really a beautiful race for me,” and showed what gave him the motivation to perform as he did. Letsile carried his mother’s birthday on his shoes, who he lost in May this year. “It’s basically me carrying her through every stride that I take inside the field,” said the sprinter, revealing why it was important for him to win.

WHile Tebogo celebrates his historic feat, will Noah look to get back to training once again to prove that this race was a fluke incident that doesn’t define his true abilities? Only time will tell!