Noah Lyles wins Olympic gold in a close race

In the men’s 100-meter final at the Paris Olympics, Team USA’s Noah Lyles won the gold medal by a razor-thin margin of five-thousandths of a second, which is .005 of one tick of the clock.

Lyles finished with a time of 9.784 seconds, just ahead of Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, who ran 9.789 seconds, and America’s Fred Kerley, who finished in 9.81 seconds.

The race was incredibly close, and even commentators nearly called the wrong winner until the photo finish showed that Lyles was the first to lean over the finish line, despite others appearing to step over it before him.

According to Olympic rules, the first athlete whose torso (not the head, limbs, or feet) reaches the closest edge of the finish line is declared the winner. This is why Lyles earned the gold and the title of the world’s fastest man, even though some viewers noted that other athletes’ shoes reached the finish line first.