Olympic champion Noah Lyles said he was prepared to race Miami Dolphins star receiver Tyreek Hill in New York before plans fell through due to “personal reasons”.
Speaking at a Sport Beach event in France, Lyles said the proposed event had come to fruition after several months of back-and-forth trash talk.
“We were very deep into creating the event. In fact, it was supposed to happen this weekend,” Lyles said. “Unfortunately there were some things, complications, personal reasons that it just didn’t come to pass, but we were full on.
“We were gonna have a big event, we were going to shut down New York Times Square and everything, we were gonna have all the billboards for the event, it was going to be a lot of fun.”
Lyles did not elaborate on the “complications” or “personal reasons” that he referenced.
Hill had challenged Lyles to a 50-yard race after the sprinter won 100m gold at last summer’s Olympics. Lyles is also a three-time world champion after winning gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m in 2023.
Hill, an eight-time Pro Bowler and one of the fastest players in the NFL, entered a track meet on Friday in California and won the 100m in a personal best of 10.15sec. After the event, Hill held up a sign that read, “Noah could never.”
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Lyles may disagree: he has easily bettered that time. His winning time in Paris was a personal best 9.79. However, he has been happy to exchange trash-talk with Hill in recent months. After winning the US indoor 60m title in February, he held up a sign saying: “Tyreek Could Never”.
