Olympic sprinter Noah Lyles has a knack for making whole sports organizations hate him. First, he made enemies with the NBA by infamously saying that players that win the league championship can't call themselves world champions, when they only play competition in their own country. This quote from Lyles in 2023 without a doubt acted as fuel for this year's USA Olympic basketball team to take home the gold:
"You know the thing that hurts me the most is that I have to watch the NBA Finals and they have 'World Champion' on their head. World champion of what? The United States? Don't get me wrong, I love the U.S. - at times - but that ain't the world." https://twitter.com/eurosport/status/1695789669093359751 To Lyles' credit, the NBA is the "National Basketball Association," not the "Global Basketball Association," so there's some validity to what he's saying. Olympians do, in fact, compete with other athletes from all around the world in an attempt to take home the gold. But with all of the overseas talent that's included in the NBA, it's hard to argue that winning the Larry O'Brien Trophy doesn't put you on top of the world competitively. And as if Lyles' feud with the NBA wasn't enough, he now finds himself in somewhat of
verbal competition with the NFL . The Olympic sprinter apparently grouped the NFL into the "not actually world champions" argument, and Miami Dolphins speedster Tyreek Hill took offense to that:
"For him to say that we're not world champions of our sport... come on bruh, just speak on what you know about and that's track... I would beat Noah Lyles (in a race)." https://twitter.com/UpAndAdamsShow/status/1823053439708127531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1823053439708127531%7Ctwgr%5E8264524f5822325f54ed665250e0b68fcc35e727%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.whiskeyriff.com%2F2024%2F08%2F12%2Ftyreek-hill-accuses-noah-lyles-of-faking-sick-after-200m-bronze-thinks-can-beat-the-olympic-sprinter-in-a-race%2F Funny that Tyreek says to "speak on what you know," then almost
immediately says he would beat Lyles in a foot race. It's not clear if Noah Lyles has gotten word of what Tyreek had to say, and that seems to be in part because the Olympian doesn't know who Hill is. During an interview with NBC Sports, Lyles forgot (or at least acted like he did) what Hill's name was, and had to be helped with remembering:
"What's the guy... the cheetah guy from football? I can't remember his name." https://twitter.com/DKSportsbook/status/1824492723040293131 Folks... that's some mad disrespect right there, whether it's intentional or unintentional. And there's only one way to solve all of this tension and back-and-forth: Tyreek Hill and Noah Lyles need to race. But even if they did, under Lyles' belief system, they still wouldn't be able to claim that either one of them is the "fastest in the world." It's a great conundrum...
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