A little more than six months removed from winning an Olympic gold medal in the men’s 100 meter and claiming the title of “fastest man alive,” American sprinter Noah Lyles is welcoming a new challenge this year: racing Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
After trading barbs and trash talk for months, Lyles and Hill announced their intention to run against each other for real earlier this month. And Lyles is taking the opportunity seriously.
“I’m not here to play around,” Lyles told NBC News. “I’m dead serious about this. I’m going to bring everything I got for this.”
Lyles, 27, won gold in Paris with a thrilling finish in the 100 meter, defeating Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by a fraction of a second. Only eight days after the race, Hill — known as arguably the fastest receiver in the NFL — was asked on a podcast if he could beat Lyles in a race. He didn’t hesitate to say yes.
The two have exchanged shots since. Lyles escalated the beef when he held up a “Tyreek could never” sign after winning the 60-meter race at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Feb 2.
Lyles said he and Hill actually spoke to each other for the first time following the Indoor Grand Prix. In brief phone conversations, both athletes affirmed they were serious about facing off on the track and finally agreed to race.
And in those conversations with Hill, Lyles says he made it clear not to mistake his trash talk for light heartedness.
“I don’t want you to think that I’m just out here joking,” Lyles said of his message to the Dolphins receiver. “Let me be confident saying this. I’m your guy. I’m your guy who’s gonna to let you swing, but best believe I will dodge and you will get hit with an uppercut.”
Hill, to his credit, isn’t backing down from his decorated opponent, telling NBC Sports in February that Lyles “should be scared” of him in a 40-yard dash.
The event is not without its detractors, as some are calling it a “huge mistake” for a runner of Lyles’s caliber to entertain Hill’s challenge. But Lyles says a motivation is to bring more eyeballs to the sport outside of the Olympics, which only takes place once every four years.
“Something that’s constantly on my mind is how to keep track relevant,” Lyles said. “Track and field has a great reputation inside of the Olympics, but in the marketing sense, when it comes to the U.S., it’s just fallen short a few too many times.”
