Noah Lyles, the sprint sensation from the USA, has achieved it all. The third-fastest man on the planet in 200m, 6x world champion, and now an Olympic gold medalist, he clearly has the resume of a legend. If you trace back the journey of the 27-year-old sprint phenom to his early career, you will find it to be brimming with triumphs and victories. However, you will be surprised to know that life wasn’t all roses and rainbows for Noah. Beyond the fame and accolades and record-breaking runs, there’s a darker side to Noah Lyles, marred with personal battles that heavily tested his resilience and determination.

Noah Lyles suffered from ADD, anxiety, and dyslexia, which severely impaired his academic performance. As if this wasn’t enough, Lyles also has to grapple with asthma, allergies, and mental health issues. But these demons couldn’t subdue Lyles’s unyielding determination, and his massive track and field success is a testament to it. His viral “Why not you” post on X perhaps reflected the same sentiments, urging him to become the best of you. However, when the host of the YouTube channel, ‘Access Hollywood,’ asked the 100m king who he was trying to inspire with his post, Noah Lyles had the most authentic answer: himself. Recalling the struggles of his school days, Lyles said, “To be honest, I was hoping to inspire the younger me. I remember those time periods when I was going to school when I felt so dumb and so unintelligent because, you know, I have dyslexia and ADD and I struggle to take tests. I just felt so stupid being in that environment. And later, coming out of that environment, learning that I have all these beautiful skills, and the way that I attack problems is seen as unorthodox but very wanted.”

Noah Lyles also commented on the absurdity of people labeling you based on a few stereotypes about your life. That’s when the sprint phenomenon struck hard at the social constructs enforced by people and emphasized that, despite all the challenges, it’s possible to achieve greatness. “You know, it was very weird for me to have that shift and even having these talents as a track and field athlete; you know, at the time, you just seem like a dumb jock, you know, and having all these labels put upon you is I feel like so hard as a child because you don’t even know what you want to be yet. But having that idea that no matter what I become, I know that it’s not always going to be hard, and just because it is hard doesn’t mean that I can’t shoot for the stars,” said Lyles.

But beyond the personal demons, the insufficiencies of his childhood also opened another avenue for the young Noah Lyles to face hardship—bullying.

Noah Lyles overcame bullying to reach the summit of athletic success

Noah Lyles not only had to live through personal issues during his childhood, but those issues also invited another challenge for him. He has to face constant bullying in school, which must have taken a heavy mental toll on young Noah. Speaking to ‘Everybody Wants To Be Us’ on YouTube, Noah revealed, “I was bullied through middle school.” That wasn’t it; the 5x Diamond League winner revealed that bullying continued well into high school when he was already a rising sprint sensation with a gold in 200m at the youth Olympics, and his achievements overshadowed his poor academic performance.

Bullies instead pick a minor physical imperfection to demean him. “Let’s just say the medication that I was taking for my ADD and asthma, it really yellowed my teeth,” Noah revealed. However, unaffected by the bullying, Noah was busy building his skills. By 2019, Lyles was a top-class sprinter with two world championship titles to his name. He even went on to claim a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 200m. Today, Lyles is a force to be reckoned with in track and field and the most probable candidate to break Usain Bolt’s 100m world record.