Highly anticipated Noah Lyles vs Tyreek Hill race faces a dead end

The highly anticipated race between Olympic champion Noah Lyles and NFL star Tyreek Hill, which was set to take place in New York this weekend, has been cancelled due to “complications” and “personal reasons,” Lyles confirmed in a recent statement.

The rivalry between the two reignited last week after Hill clocked 10.15 seconds in the 100m dash, outpaced 91 sprinters, and won the race at the Last Chance Sprint Series held in Sherman Oaks, California.

Earlier this year, the duo had agreed to race each other sometime this spring or summer before Lyles competes in the U.S. Championships this July. But just before the much-hyped showdown with the NFL wide receiver, Noah Lyles announced it fell through, expressing disappointment as many had doubted it would ever happen.

“We were very deep into creating the event. 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,” Lyles said.

Hill and Lyles' feud started in August. Noah Lyles sparked the debate in a press conference after the 2023 World Athletics Championships, where he questioned:

"You know the thing that hurts me the most is that I have to watch the NBA Finals and they have 'world champion' on their head. World champion of what? The United States?" (via People magazine)

His remarks went viral, and many NBA athletes, including Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Damian Lillard, and PJ Tucker, called out Noah Lyles. In August, during an interview on the Up & Adams show, Hill fired back:

“I wouldn’t beat him by a lot, but I would beat Noah Lyles.”

Hill was adamant he could beat the 100-meter gold medalist. After winning the 60m final at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in February, Lyles held up a sign that read, "Tyreek could never." Then, after his recent race, Hill responded with a note: “Noah could never.”

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"People didn’t believe it was real": Noah Lyles on cancelled Times Square race with Tyreek Hill

In the aforementioned statement, Noah Lyles further explained that many people and companies didn’t believe the race with Tyreek was real. He highlighted the effort that went into planning the event:

“But we were excited. We had a big event planned. We were going to shut down New York Times Square and everything. We had all the billboards planned for the event. It was going to be a lot of fun. But I'll take this moment, because what we were dealing with was that a lot of people didn’t believe it to be true. They thought, ‘Oh, this is just them talking online.’ You know, we had to bring it to fruition, so we had to talk, and they were like, ‘We don't believe that.’ Not only just the people, but also the companies."

Lyles is the reigning 100m champion, having clocked 9.784s and clinched gold in the Paris Olympics.