Noah Lyles drops out of race with NFL star Tyreek Hill - here’s why

A highly anticipated race between Olympic 100-meter champion Noah Lyles and Miami Dolphins’ speedy wide receiver Tyreek Hill waw set to take place in New York this weekend. But after months of trash talk, Lyles canceled last minute, and Hill isn’t buying his reasons.

Lyles and Hill were “full on”...until they weren’t

Lyles is a three-time world champion sprinter, winning gold in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m in 2023. Hill is an eight-time Pro Bowler and one of the fastest players in the NFL. After Lyles won the 100m gold at last summer’s Olympics, Hill challenged him to a 50-yard race.

Since then, the two have been exchanging playful trash talk. On Friday, Hill entered a track meet in California and won the 100m race with a personal record of 10.15 seconds. When the race was over, he held up a sign that read, “Noah could never”.

As it turns out, Noah could ever. His Olympic gold came with a personal best of 9.79 seconds, and he previously trolled Hill by displaying a “Tyreek Could Never” sign after a U.S. indoor title.

But after all that, Lyles revealed that the race between the two has been canceled due to undisclosed “personal reasons”. He shared the update during a Sport Beach event in France.

“We were gonna have a big event, we were going to shut down New York Times Square and everything,” said Lyles. “We were gonna have all the billboards for the event, it was going to be a lot of fun.”

“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."

He did not elaborate on what those complications and personal reasons were, but Hill isn’t buying it, publishing a post on social media that hinted that Lyles was intimidated by Hill’s race time on Friday.

While the race won’t be happening (for now), the rivalry remains one of the most entertaining cross-sport storylines in athletics

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