American sprinter Noah Lyles said that his performance in the final of the 200-meter race at the Olympic Games in Paris was affected by the fact that he fell ill with the corona virus, but that he is proud that he managed to win a bronze medal.
Lyles won bronze in the 200m last night, his second medal in Paris, after gold in the 100m. He had a bad start and could not make up for that gap, so Letsile Tobogo from Botswana won gold, and American Kenny Bednarek won silver.
In Paris, Lyles was trying to become the first sprinter to win two Olympic golds in the 100 and 200 meters at the same Games, since the Jamaican Usain Bolt, who did it in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
After the race, Lyles fell on his back and was helped on the track, where he was taken away on a wheelchair. After that, he said that he tested positive for the corona virus on Tuesday morning.
"I have covid. I tested positive at 5 am on Tuesday. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling chills, sore throat, and these are all the symptoms I had before the corona virus. After the positive result, I quickly went to quarantine, to a hotel nearby Olympic Village, where they gave me as much medication as was legally allowed to make sure my body could handle it," Lyles said.
"I wanted to run, we decided it was still possible, so we broke away from everyone and tried to go lap by lap. I knew that to win, I would have to do my best, right from the start. I had no time to save strength. It definitely affected my performance. I'm extremely proud of myself to go out on the track and win the bronze," added the 27-year-old sprinter.
He said that he tried to hide that he got sick and that only the doctors, his coach and his mother knew about it.
"We didn't want everyone to panic. We wanted to be able to compete. We wanted it to be as discreet as possible because you don't want to tell your opponents you're sick. Which would give them an advantage," Lyles said.
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