USA’s Noah Lyles: manga geek, alpha male and very, very fast

BBefore lining up for his opening 100m event at the U.S. Olympic Trials in June, Noah Lyles made sure to milk his close-up on TV. But instead of beating his chest or pointing upward or making some other peacocking display of manliness, the American sprinter did about the dorkiest thing he could think of: He pulled out a Blue-Eyes White Dragon Yu-Gi-Oh! card.

For the uninitiated: Yu-Gi-Oh! is a manga series which launched around the turn of the century and, like Pokémon, spawned a trading card game. The Blue-Eyes White Dragon, a symbol of near-invincibility, is a trump card that sells for a lot of money on the collectors’ market. By playing his highest trump card, and so early in the trials, Lyles not only shook up the Yu-Gi-Oh! card market; he shouted to classic gamers everywhere: I am one of you.

“My Yu-Gi-Oh loving kid went nuts when he saw this and knew exactly which card Lyles flashed!” wrote one X user. Another added, “Bro hella corny but Blue-Eyes White Dragon is automatic respect.”

The 27-year-old Floridian has a knack for stealing attention. In the Netflix track and field docuseries Sprint , Lyles compares himself to an artistic director, known as much for his theatrical introductions as for his Lewis Hamilton-esque walkways to the track. In the meantime, Lyles has emerged as a generational sprinter who gives the U.S. a chance to regain the track glory that collapsed in the era of Usain Bolt, Lyles’ idol. There are Bolt stripes in Lyles, a six-time world champion who concluded his U.S. Olympic trials by running a personal best in the 100 meters and breaking Michael Johnson’s 28-year-old American record in the 200 meters.

Lyles wants to leave Paris with Bolt’s longstanding world records in the 100m and 200m. In total, he is aiming for four gold medals from these Games – in the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m and 4x400m relays. In an appearance on the Tonight Show in June, Lyles showed just how much he wants to pass Bolt. “It’s not just good enough to be faster, you’ve got to have the medals to go with it,” he said. “OK, he’s won three [golds at a single Olympics]and he’s got the world records…what do you have to do to be better than that? You have to get four. Nobody’s got four.”

The bigger Lyles’ speeches, the more loyal track observers say: slower; that’s too much pressureThere is no doubt that Lyles – the product of two outstanding college athletes – whose younger brother, Josephus, is also a world-class sprinterprojects as a future immortal job. It’s that the hype seems to have reduced Lyles to yet another arrogant American stereotype. In another scene from Netflix’s Sprinter , Lyles explains that being a successful athlete requires “the mindset of a god.”

In an interview following his sprint victories at the 2023 World Athletics Championships, which came around the same time the Denver Nuggets won their first NBA title, Lyles bristled at the idea that a basketball player would consider ita newly minted three-time gold medalist, a pear. “World champion of what?” he sneered, referring to the NBA winners. “The United States?” NBA stars Kevin Durant and Devin Booker led the backlash on social media, while a few voices, like sportswriter Gary Al-Smith, defended Lyles’s remarks as an observation about American exceptionalism — an irony clearly lost on the sprinter.

But for hardcore track fans who take Lyles’ talent seriously, his biggest offense is his insistence on calling himself the fastest man alive. And that’s despite the fact that Bolt is still alive and kicking, and Kishane Thompson, a 23-year-old Jamaican, ran the fastest 100 meters in two years at the Olympic trials in Jamaica in June. “My coach told me to just run the first 60, nothing more,” Thompson said dryly afterward. For a sprinter not known for his cards, Thompson has a terrific poker face.[Thompson] “He hasn’t shown his full potential yet,” 2004 Olympic champion Justin Gaitlin said recently on a podcast, “and that’s scary to me.”

But Lyles has largely shaken off Thompson. “I’ll beat anyone I touch,” he said after the Jamaican shaved four hundredths off Lyles’ world-record time. The rising tensions have inflamed the rivalry between the American and Jamaican sprinters to unprecedented levels — with Lyles adding fuel to the fire by insinuating that his Jamaican girlfriend, Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Junelle Bromfield, was feeding him information about Thompson’s training camp. The more Lyles piles on the pressure, the more it seems to weigh on him.

After winning bronze in the 200 meters at the Tokyo Games, Lyles opened about his lifelong battle with anxiety and depression. He said the medication he takes to manage his mental health causes weight gain that diminishes his speed, forcing him to go off his medication before major competitions. Lyles recalled his experiences on the starting blocks in Tokyo, saying he told himself “it’s showtime” in hopes of boosting his energy, but thought “this isn’t cool, this isn’t fun.” When his brother, Josephus, didn’t compete in the Olympics that same year, Noah cried.

The dark times prompted Lyles to hire a sports therapist, an “everyday” therapist and a third counselor who specializes in grief. (Bromfield, his girlfriend, considered quitting track and field after her mother died of cervical cancer in 2021.) And while Lyles credits the clinical work for helping him overcome his inner critic on his way to a silver medal in the 60m at the 2024 world indoor championships, he’s faced new challenges in Paris — where his popularity in the Olympic Village has come as something of a surprise. “Even though we may be superstars in your eyes, we’re still human and we want to have our space and our time,” he told reporters earlier this week. “I want to be able to enjoy the Olympics just like you guys are.”

Many great athletes walk a fine line between believing they are invincible and realizing they are human—and it is often the strongest who are willing to admit their vulnerability. Even as he moves from supreme self-assurance to quieter introspection, Lyles reminds the world that self-discovery is the real prize in any hero’s journey.