Noah Lyles vs. Tyreek Hill Sprint Showdown Canceled

A much-anticipated 60m sprint between Olympic champion Noah Lyles and NFL star Tyreek Hill has been canceled, just days before it was reportedly scheduled to take place in New York City’s Times Square.

Lyles revealed the news on Monday while speaking at the Stagwell Global Sport Beach event in Cannes, France.

“We were very deep into creating the event,” Lyles said. “In fact, it was supposed to happen this weekend. Unfortunately, there were some things, complications, personal reasons that it just didn’t come to pass, but we were full on. We were going to shut down New York’s Times Square and everything, it was going to be a lot of fun.”

The race, which was expected to take place before July, was the product of months of public trash talk between the two athletes. After winning gold in the 100 meters at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Lyles was challenged by Hill to a 60m sprint.

In February, Lyles celebrated a win at the New Balance Grand Prix in Boston by pulling off his race bib to reveal a handwritten message, “Tyreek Could Never”. Last week, Hill responded after clocking a personal best of 10.15 seconds in the 100m at a meet in Sherman Oaks, California. He held up his own sign that read, “Noah Could Never.”

Despite the theatrical lead-up, Lyles said many people, including potential sponsors, had doubts that the event was real.

“A lot of people didn’t believe it to be true,” Lyles told reporters in Cannes. “They thought it was just, ‘Oh, this is just them talking online.’ The companies didn’t believe it’s real”.

Hill, one of the fastest players in the NFL and an eight-time Pro Bowler, has a decorated sprinting background.

He represented the U.S. at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Barcelona, winning gold in the 4x100m relay and bronze in the 200m. In college, he posted personal bests of 10.19 seconds in the 100 meters and 20.14 in the 200m. His recent 10.15-second result was his fastest ever and came after a long hiatus from competitive sprinting.

Still, the gap between Hill’s performance and Lyles’s is significant.

Lyles ran a personal best of 9.83 in the 100 meters and won Olympic gold in Paris with a time of 9.87. He has consistently run under 10.05 in every 100m race over the last two years, except for a wind-impacted meet in Bermuda in 2022.

The exact reason for the race’s cancellation remains unclear. Lyles did not elaborate beyond citing “personal reasons.”

While there has been no official link between the cancellation and any external issues, Hill was involved in a domestic incident in April, though no charges were filed. Hill has a past conviction for domestic assault in 2015 and was investigated in 2019 for child abuse. That case was closed without charges.

Hill, however, responded to the cancellation by posting a meme on X (formerly Twitter) showing a version of the Homer Simpson “bush retreat” GIF with the caption, “.@LylesNoah after seeing me run the 100m last weekend.”