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In an interview, the three-time sprint world champion from Budapest talks about his illnesses and his love of sport.
With the world title over 100 meters in Budapest, Noah Lyles has closed the last gap in his palmarès. The now six-time world champion also recently ran at Weltklasse Zürich before declaring his 2023 season over. Later he gave deep insights into his emotional world. Among other things, Lyles talked about …
… his first world title over 100 m:
“In our sport, the 100m title is synonymous with the title of fastest man. I always knew I was the fastest, but it’s difficult to say when you don’t have the title. I put so much pressure on myself to finally win this world title. Now I’ve done it.”
… his asthma:
“I was diagnosed with asthma when I was young and spent many hours in the hospital. When I was young, competitive sport was beyond my ability because my asthma was so bad. But I always believed that things would get better. Just because something is bad now doesn’t mean it will be bad forever. That mentality got me through the toughest times of my life.”
… his depressions:
“I struggle with severe depression. I’ve had it my whole career, my whole life. During Corona they became more difficult and conspicuous. That’s when I realized that I was really suffering from depression. I had to take medication and increase the number of sessions with my therapist. This has allowed me to increase the number of my ‘tools’ to improve mental health.”
… athletics:
“I want to see the sport grow. I want everyone to see what we can achieve. I see the potential of athletics and I want other people to see that too.”
…his love of racing:
“We’re actually rock stars. This year is the first time I’ve seen how many kids, adults and fans want to see us race. It doesn’t matter if we run fast or slow. In their minds, we are the people they want to become. That’s always one of the reasons I like to run. And of course – I like to run against fast people.”