PARIS, France — Noah Lyles may be the World's Fastest Man, but a Central Texas native took home some highly coveted hardware Sunday.
Taylor High School graduate Fred Kerley won the bronze medal in Paris, finishing just .02 seconds behind Lyles and Kishane Thompson of Jamaica.
The first four racers were separated by less than .03 seconds. The top seven finished within .09 seconds of each other.
Kerley is a veteran when it comes to the Olympics. He earned a silver medal in the 100-meter dash during the Tokyo Games, putting together his personal best. Texas-born Italian Lamont Marcell Jacobs was the only runner who beat him out.
"That’s probably one of the most beautiful races I’ve been in,” Kerley said after the epic finish.
Botched call
NBC announcer Leigh Diffey, who is calling his sixth Olympics, took responsibility for declaring the wrong winner Sunday.
“The men’s 100 was epic & closest of all time! My eyes & instinct told me Kishane Thompson won,” Diffey wrote on social media. “Obviously, that wasn’t the case. I shouldn’t have been so bold to call it, but I genuinely thought he won. I got it wrong.”
Diffey added he was thrilled for Lyles, who is the first American to win the event since Justin Gatlin did it in 2004.
Viewers took to social media to pan Diffey's mistake. The call also seemed to have been tweaked by NBC during the replay that aired Sunday night to make the error less obvious.
"They're all experts after it's over, right? I trusted my eyes and instinct," Diffey told the Associated Press. "[I] got it wrong by .0005 seconds."