Noah Lyles’ Olympic hero story has turned into a cautionary tale and you best be wary of it

This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.

Good morning, Winners! Thanks so much for reading TMW today. We appreciate you rocking with us. Hope you’ve had a great week.

Here’s your daily Olympic medal count as of 9 a.m. E.T.:

— United States: 103 (30 gold, 38 silver, 35 bronze)

— China: 74 (30 gold, 25 silver, 19 bronze)

— France: 55 (14 gold, 19 silver, 22 bronze)

— Great Britain: 52 (14 gold, 17 silver, 21 bronze)

— Australia: 46 (18 gold, 14 silver, 14 bronze)

Let’s jump in.

Noah Lyles’ story just got flipped

On Thursday my phone rang. It was my mom. She calls me every day to check on me, because that’s what moms do. But yesterday, she had a bit of panic in her voice.

She’d just watched Noah Lyles run for bronze in the men’s 200-meter sprint. She’d been rooting for the guy since the Olympic trials. Like everyone else, she fell in love with his charm and confidence. She loved the Yu Gi Oh cards, too, because she could ask me about them.

So when she saw him collapse to the ground after running the race he was supposedly the favorite to win, she was concerned.

“I’ve never seen him drop like that,” she said to me. I tried to assure her he was probably fine and just tired. She wouldn’t hear it. “As a mom, you know when something’s wrong,” she said.

She was right. Something was terribly wrong. Shortly after that, we found out Lyles had COVID-19.

That’s all it took to silence the loudest man at the Olympics this summer. Noah Lyles had been telling us all summer how great he was. He let us know that he was going to make history at these Games in so many ways. And, to his credit, he did that with his first historic 100-meter sprint.

But the job wasn’t finished. He wanted that 200-meter medal, too. The 100 was great. But both the 100 and 200? That would’ve been undeniable. He would’ve been the 10t h man ever to win both and the first since Usain Bolt in 2016. Nothing was going to stop him.

That is until COVID-19 came into the picture. The virus had Lyles singing a different tune.

“It’s taken its toll, for sure. But I’ve never been more proud of myself for being able to come out here and get a bronze medal,” Lyles said. “Last Olympics I was disappointed in it. This time I couldn’t be more proud.”

Don’t get me wrong — that’s reasonable. Winning a bronze medal with COVID is insane. It makes you wonder what was possible. Could he have beaten Lestlie Tebogo, whose 19.45 time was better than any time in the 200m Lyles posted this year? We’ll never know.

But what I do know is that, regularly, Lyles wouldn’t have been satisfied with bronze. Just a week ago, if you’d told him that’s what he’d run, he’d be extremely disappointed in it. The circumstances changed, obviously.

That’s the power of that virus. It may not be 2020 anymore, but it’s still scary.

The scariest part is that Lyles isn’t the only one with it — another 40 athletes at the Games reportedly have COVID. Cases around the country have also been spiking all summer long. Thankfully, the death toll isn’t what it once was. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take this seriously.

Unfortunately, however, that’s how everyone seems to be treating it. As impressive as his race was, the fact that Lyles was still allowed to run it is a bit baffling to me.

But we’re no longer treating this virus the serious matter it once was. Technically, the Paris Olympics have no COVID protocol. It feels like the CDC treats quarantining like a suggestion if you do have it. At this point, we might as well be talking about the common cold or the flu here.

Make no mistake, folks. COVID-19 hasn’t gone anywhere. It still lingers and it still damages people. If it got bad enough to bring an Olympic medalist to the ground, then imagine what it could do to at-risk folks elsewhere.

Noah Lyles’ hero story is now a cautionary tale. Be wary. Stay healthy.

Our final taste of Paris

Michell Martinelli is checking in with her final TMW dispatch from Paris. What a sweet ride it’s been. This time, she gives us perspective on the Seine River and open-water racing.

PARIS — Bonjour, les gagnants! After years of uncertainty and speculation — including the final weeks leading up to the Paris Olympics — open water marathon swimming actually happened this week in the Seine River.

And let’s just say it clearly takes a really special kind of swimmer to not just train and qualify for the event but also finish it. (The triathletes did it too.)

The women’s 10k was Thursday, and the men’s was Friday. There are 80 million reasons why these swimmers in particular are tougher and stronger than the rest of us, but here are a few …

First, as we’ve written about many times, the water quality of the Seine — where swimming had previously been banned since 1923 — was questionable at best leading up to the Games. Bacteria levels, fecal matter and E. coli included, were fluctuating, and the river is more like a grayish-greenish-brown rather than any semblance of clear or blue. It was also reportedly declared biologically dead in the 1960s.

The sunrise view was pretty fab though:

Second, as the swimmers said afterward, the current was super powerful and unlike anything many of them had experienced before, typically swimming in lakes and oceans rather than the narrow metropolitan waterway.

Team USA’s Katie Grimes called the current “extreme,” adding: “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, ever.” She never wants to race in a river again.

Fellow American Ivan Puskovitch said the current was particularly bad on the turns of the 1.67-kilometer loop “when you just have this wall of water coming at you from the side.” Though, he was in much higher spirits post-race than many.

Also, when several of those who finished — four of 29 in the men’s final didn’t — finally climbed out, they looked beyond exhausted, even dejected. “It’s the worst and best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” said Irish swimmer Daniel Wiffen, who thought about quitting midway through but was happy he didn’t.

Props to them because open water swimming is a hard pass for me and probably most of us.

With the Closing Ceremony set for Sunday, this is my last dispatch from the Paris Olympics. So thanks for reading, and au revoir!

Avengers, assemble!

PARIS, FRANCE - AUGUST 08: Stephen Curry #4 of Team United States celebrates while Aleksa Avramovic #30 of Team Serbia reacts after Team United States' victory against Team Serbia during a Men's basketball semifinals match between Team United States and Team Serbia on day thirteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on August 08, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) — (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

I know I’ve been making a lot of Captain America and Avengers references throughout these Olympics, but I can find no other way to describe what we watched from Team USA against Serbia on Thursday.

Honestly, I’m unsure if the states have ever been more united than they were at that moment.

At the end of the third quarter, the U.S. was down by as many as 15 points. That is, until Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant decided that the game wouldn’t end like that.

I couldn’t really think in the moment while watching it. I just kept repeating, “This means something to me, man” over and over again in my mind.

Curry, specifically, put his cape on with 36 points and nine made 3-pointers. It was a true vintage performance from the greatest shooter of all time.

The basketball was incredible. But what was even more unbelievable was all of their unreasonable and irrational fans finally coming together and cheering for all three of them at the same time.

This tweet sums it up perfectly.

Kevin Durant, Steph Curry and LeBron James. The three greatest players of this era, just saved Team USA from an absolute disaster.

That was one of my favorite basketball moments in my lifetime.

— Jason Timpf (@_JasonLT) August 8, 2024