Tebogo has the last laugh

America’s Noah Lyles who had won bronze was supposed to be overrun by a media storm after revealing that he had tested positive for Covid-19 two days before the day.

‘Reckless’ would have been the apt word to describe an athlete who insisted on competing in a race with Covid-19. He certainly endangered the lives of those he raced with in the semi-finals on Wednesday and the finals on Thursday. He would have been pilloried for endangering the lives of other people who came contact with the athletes he infected.

Then there would have been the impact of the virus from Lyles on the performance of other athletes on the later events like the relays.

But this was not a simple story because Lyles is the media’s darling and most of the journalists covering the Olympics are from the West. They tell stories through the eyes tinted by Western superiority. Even when an African succeeds, as Tebogo did, it remains a footnote in the narrative. So it was not a big deal that Tebogo won Botswana’s first gold.

It wasn’t a huge issue that Lyles was spraying a dangerous virus at an international event. We are now being told that he didn’t violate any rules because the Olympics don’t have any Covid-19 protocols. His team nonchalantly said they assessed him but he decided to compete. You would think they were talking about a bruised toe and not a deadly virus that has killed millions. This is the same team of a country whose president had spent days in self-isolation after testing positive for Covid-19.

No need to imagine the shrieking that would have ensued if it was an African athlete who had revealed they had Covid when they participated in an event at the Olympics.

Without obvious targets for bashing and condescending stories on August 8, a new story had to be contrived out of the reality that the entire world had seen. Tebogo couldn’t just get the headlines alone. It had to be highlighted that Lyles had Covid-19 but won bronze.

That fixed story started unfolding just as Tebogo began celebrating his emphatic victory.

Lyles, the boastful and pre-race favourite, dramatically crumbled on the tracks after coming a distant bronze behind Tebogo. Looking winded and disoriented, he was carted off the tracks in a wheelchair.

Soon after it was revealed that Lyles – who had been showboating, swaggering and ‘peacocking’ before the race – had Covid-19.

He later told the media he had tested positive two days earlier.

“I am more proud of myself than anything. Coming out and winning the bronze medal after three days with Covid … it has been a wild Olympics,” he said, now wearing a mask.

And just in case some doubted how Covid-19 had interfered with the outcome, Lyles was clear that “it definitely affected” his performance.

He was stating the obvious so the media gets it loud and clear why he was third after weeks of hyping him as the obvious favourite.

Facts gathered, sound bites recorded and the agenda clearly set, the media obliged by tweaking headlines announcing Tebogo’s spectacular Olympic victory to reflect that Lyles ran the race while suffering from Covid-19.

The shine instantly fell back on Lyles as he clawed back some sympathy from many who, minutes earlier, had seen him as an arrogant American who had been deservedly defeated and humiliated by a humble African boy.

“Tebogo wins stunning 200m as Covid-hit Lyles denied,” screamed the BBC’s headline. The Boston Globe mentioned Tebogo in word 13 of their 20-word headline, opening with Lyles’ bronze and attributing it to Covid before mentioning Tebogo’s victory.

“Noah Lyles settles for bronze in 200 meters after testing positive for COVID; Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo upsets field for gold,” the newspaper said.

“Noah Lyles, stricken with COVID-19 takes 3rd in 200m,” said Associated Press, as if the fact that Tebogo won gold was not worth mentioning in the headline.

The CBS headline acknowledged “Botswana’s Tebogo wins men’s 200m gold” before planting a semicolon to add: “Lyles, battling through COVID, lands bronze”.

Other media outlets infused the Lyles-Covid element into the first lines of their stories.

Some cynics immediately doubted Lyles’ claim, implying that it was an excuse for losing an event he had won 17 times in a row and proudly calls his “wife”.

Although the timing of the revelation was suspicious I had no compelling reason to doubt that the man had Covid. The consequences of being caught in a lie about having Covid didn’t seem worth the trouble and a conspiracy of such proportions isn’t durable enough.

What stood out for me was the utility Lyles gave to his Covid diagnosis.

As the headlines that followed proved, Lyles had succeeded in stealing Tebogo’s moment of glory and the media had aided him in doing so by elevating his illness.

Whether this was out of sly scheming or unintended consequences of innocent actions is open to speculation.

The narrative that instantly emerged and is likely to persist for years is that Lyles is that great sprinter who beat Covid to win bronze.

That gives him an “against-odds” story and banishes the idea that he failed to live up to pre-race hype by himself and the media.

Because a sick star had conquered Covid to win bronze it no longer mattered that he had bragged at a press conference, days earlier, that his lead would be so emphatic that his opponents would be depressed when they come off the curve.

Instead of being seen as having underperformed Lyles was now lauded as having overachieved.

And the media was dutifully useful in creating that notion. They contrived the impression that Lyles was not the arrogant favourite who had been thoroughly humbled but a hero who beat a disease to win bronze. This was now a story of determination and resilience in adversity.

But that is the simpler part of the sinister story that Lyles’ sideshow portrayed for now and the future. There is worse. It said Lyles missed out on ‘his’ gold because of Covid.

That is to say Tebogo won only because Lyles, the ‘rightful champion’, was sabotaged by Covid. Tebogo was therefore aided by Covid to beat the real champion.

In other words, it was not because of his talent or effort that Tebogo won gold.

Yet the numbers show nothing outrageous about Tebogo beating Lyles at the Olympics. Even a healthy Lyles could still have lost to Tebogo.

The reality was that if Lyles was the favourite to win gold, Tebogo was the favourite to beat him to it. Lyles beat Tebogo by 0.3 seconds at their meeting in London last year. That is where Tebogo set his record of 19:50 seconds and Lyles achieved his second-best time of 19:47 seconds.

That the media didn’t say much about Tebogo as a real threat to Lyles and a likely gold winner is largely due to their unhealthy obsession with drama and personalities that makes them susceptible to being easily blindsided by numbers that reveal obvious possibilities.

It explains why in their moment of collective shock at that which was not terribly unlikely (Tebogo’s victory) they are quick to look for possible explanations.

Lyles blamed Covid and the media stampeded to repeat it because it also explains why they got their predictions wrong by refusing to open themselves to the possibility that Tebogo had a strong chance of winning.

While echoing Lyles’ “it-was -Covid” line they also missed that Tebogo had just shaved 0.04sec off his personal best of 19.50 achieved in July last year.

Tebogo ran the best 200m of his career but Lyles didn’t run his worst 200m even though he had Covid. Lyles knows this and so do most athletics journalists.

He was perfectly fine when he got bronze with 19.74 seconds at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Some would call it an improvement for him if we consider his performance in Tokyo.

Little has been said of how exceptionally fast Tebogo was.

Only twice in his career has Lyles run 200m in less than 19.50 seconds. That is the American record of 19.31 seconds set in Hayward Field in July 2022 and 19.47 seconds in London in July 2022 where Tebogo was second with 19.50 seconds.

Lyles has been outstanding but for the past two years, he had not run faster than Tebogo did at the Olympics. There is therefore no guarantee that Lyles would have run faster than Tebogo last Thursday.

With the story now sullied by Lyles’ Covid, the import of Tebogo’s victory slipped down paragraphs and sometimes did not appear at all.

That he was Botswana’s first Olympic gold medalist became a by-the-way.

That he had lost his mother in May was occasionally mentioned after Lyles had been extensively quoted talking about his Covid diagnosis, how he was still determined to compete and why it’s great that he was a sick man who still managed bronze.

Most stories didn’t mention that Tebogo was the youngest Olympic gold medalist in the men’s 200m since America’s Bobby Joe Morrow in 1956. If Lyles had achieved that feat at 21 the American media would have crowed about it for days.

By revealing that he had Covid-19 after the race, Lyles ‘knitted’ this narrative so well that he would be basking in the headlines no matter the outcome. If he came first he would have been recorded as the greatest who beat Covid to win a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

If he came last he would still be the great one who ran despite a bout of Covid. He is milking the kudos that come with the bronze now.

What of the five athletes behind Lyles? Well, they lost to a man battling Covid-19. Lyles would take that story any day.

Luckily, there are some images and words that just endure the taste of time and refuse to be embellished.

The picture: Tebogo thumping his chest as he crossed the finishing line alone.

The words: “When I saw Kenny (Bednarek) fade I knew Noah was far, far, far away behind us. So that means I’m the Olympic champion.”

That’s what matters to the young African.

It is possible little one! Look at Tebogo!

Shakeman Mugari