Noah Lyles has canceled his upcoming race against NFL player Tyreek Hill because of “personal reasons.”
Lyles informed reporters of the race cancellation at the Stagwell Global Sport Beach event in Cannes, France. “We were very deep into creating the event,” said Lyles. “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,” he continued. “We were going to shut down New York's Times Square and everything, it was going to be a lot of fun."
Rumblings about the matchup began last year when Hill addressed Lyles for saying that NFL champions can’t call themselves “world champions.”
"Noah Lyles can't say nothing after what just happened to him," said Hill. "Then you wanna come out and pretend like he's sick. I feel like that's horseradish. For him to do that and say that, we're not world champions of our sport... Like, c'mon bro, just speak on what you know about, and that's track."
Hill then stated his claim that he’d beat Lyles in a race. "I would beat Noah Lyles," he said. "I wouldn't beat him by a lot, but I would beat Noah Lyles. And guess what? When I beat him, I'ma put on a COVID mask and let him know I mean business. 'Cause I do mean business."
In February, Lyles teased Hill that he would win after he earned his fourth straight 60-meter indoor title. When he won, Lyles ripped off his race bib to reveal a handwritten message: “Tyreek could never.”
Hill responded with a handwritten sign that read, “Noah Could Never.”
Hill, who is a two-time high school state track champion, ran a 100-meter prelim of 10.15 seconds in Sherman Oaks, Calif. On June 13. After the news of the cancellation broke, he went to X and posted a meme alleging that Lyles was ducking him because he saw how fast he completed the run.
Lyles couldn’t have been sweating too hard, though, since he won the Paris gold medal by running 100 meters in 9.7 seconds.