American Wins in Track + Olympics Basketball Quarterfinals Begin

In today’s newsletter…

• Leading Off: The Noah Lyles act works

• MLB: Yordan Alvarez batting .524 against today’s starter

• Olympics: Canadian NBA stars can push matchup over 163.5

• More MLB: Dodgers vs. Phillies set up for pitchers’ duel

• News: More on Team USA’s pommel horse king

PARIS — Leading up to the Olympics, Noah Lyles sounded like he could be the first American in 20 years to win the gold in the men’s 100-meter dash, but he wasn’t necessarily racing like it. A (relatively) slow starter, Lyles came in second in his heat on Saturday and was behind 11 sprinters across all eight heats. In fact, he wouldn’t have even automatically qualified for the semifinal if he was in teammate Fred Kerley’s heat. The 27 year old looked better in the semifinal, but still finished second in his heat and third overall.

Lyles had to set a personal best to win, which put him five-thousandths of a second ahead of Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson — the favorite coming onto Paris. No one in the raucous 80,000-person crowd at Stade de France had any idea who won for at least a minute, and the NBC commentary crew even initially called the race for Thompson.

Lyles has historically been a better 200-meter runner (he won the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics), so there could be more gold to come for him in these Games.

Abe