A race between Olympic 100-meter champion Noah Lyles and Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill that was never formally announced but supposedly taking place this weekend was called off by Lyles for “personal reasons.”
Lyles announced the cancelation Tuesday at Stagwell’s Sport Beach event in Cannes, France. His news was captured in a video posted by the New York Post on Instagram.
This postponement followed months of trash talk between the two sports stars. Lyles said in his chat at the Cannes event Tuesday the showdown with Hill was going to take place in Times Square.
“Unfortunately, there were some things — complications, personal reasons, that it just didn’t come to pass, but we were full in,” Lyles said in the video. “We were going to have a big event.”
Hill posted on social media a series of pictures with Lyles’ face on Homer Simpson’s animated character as Simpson retreated into the hedges. Hill also wrote: “LylesNoah after seeing me run the 100m last weekend.” The 31-year-old Hill ran 10.15 seconds in a race last Friday in California. He held up a sign that read “Noah Could Never.”
It was in response to the 27-year-old Lyles flashing a piece of paper that said “Tyreek Could Never” after winning a 60-meter indoor race in February.
Lyles captured Olympic 100-meter gold in Paris last summer in a time that calculated out to 9.784 seconds. It was five-thousandths of a second faster than Kishane Thompson of Jamaica.
As Lyles explained it, a race for bragging rights that was never formally announced was on track to possibly take place as soon as this weekend.
“It was going to be a lot of fun,” Lyles said in the video.
