Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo became the first African to win the Olympic 200 metres on Thursday as he upstaged Noah Lyles’ plans for a sprint double in Paris.

Tebogo, 21, was able to ease up at the end and still clocked an African record of 19.46sec for gold with American Kenny Bednarek taking silver in 19.62sec and Lyles fading to bronze in 19.70 seconds.

It turns out that Lyles was diagnosed with COVID two days before the final. At the end of the race, he sat down, which is uncharacteristic of his usual style, and then called for medical help. He left the track in a wheelchair. Once he was in the mixed zone with reporters, Lyles confirmed that he had COVID, according to USA Today, and did his interviews in a mask.