Riding the wave: Florida native to compete in one of the Olympics' newest sports

Florida is home to the U.S. Sailing Center and many of our country's Olympic sailors.

WPTV caught up with Noah Lyons , an Olympic iQFOiL athlete, who grew up in the Sunshine State and graduated from the University of South Florida.

Lyons grew up in Clearwater and learned the way of the water through his older brother Niko.

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"He signed up for a summer sailing camp with my parents — and with me being the nagging little brother wanting to copy him — I followed right into his footsteps," Lyons said.

The iQFOiL is the newest Olympic sailing event. It is like windsurfing but instead of floating it appears you are flying over the water.

"The way I like to explain it is in normal sailing it is in two dimensions, and now foiling you're sailing in three dimensions," Lyons.

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He punched his ticket to the Olympic games during the trials held in Miami with his family on hand.

"You did a flip at the end of the race basically," WPTV's Frances Peyton said. "Was that adrenaline? How do you even have that energy after a race like that?"

"That was the last finish of the last race of the Olympic trials and crossing the finish line is when I knew I had won the event and qualified for the Olympics, and so that was just my release of emotion," Lyons replied. "I could've done a hundred more races in that moment."

However, the person who was most excited about him becoming an Olympian was the person who introduced him to the water.

"My brother for sure had the best reaction," Lyons said. "I sailed into the beach and I am sailing in and I just see him running through the water, taking off his shoes, and he meets me in the water and just gives me a huge hug."

There is so much that Lyons and his family have to be proud of outside of being a pioneer in foiling at the Olympic level, his dad had high praise for his son.

"As great as a sailor as he is, he is a greater man," Lyons' dad said. "I'm going to cry, but he truly has become just an incredible human being, and this experience is only a reflection of that."

Lyons will hit the Olympic waters on July 28.