Star sprinter eyes a roiled nation and race in all its forms
Noah Lyles could be a year away from occupying a uniquely symbolic position in sports: an African American sprinter wearing the letters “USA” on a medals stand at the Olympics.
Instead of contemplating how he might use that platform, Lyles is spending time these days trying to make sense of what’s happening in his country — a land riven by protests, pain and questions in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.
“All you’re seeing is your own people getting hurt and basically killed every day,” Lyles said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Had sports not been shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, he’d be preparing for the beginning of Olympic trials next week. Come
July, he would have been at the Olympics, the worldwide behemoth at which sprinters Jesse Owens, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, to name a few, ascended the broadest platform in sports and shone a bright, often unflattering, light on race — and the way the world and America think about it.
Instead, Lyles is shuttling between home and training in Florida, keeping a wary eye on the news, trying to figure out what to say and when to say it.
“I’ve definitely pondered it quite a few times, for many years, in fact,” Lyles says. “You feel like there’s change, but not enough change, and then you’re thinking, ‘Well, shoot, it’s almost getting to be my turn, where I have to make a decision.’”
The process, which included a few to-the-point tweets earlier this week encouraging people to vote, is shedding light on a more serious side of the 22-year-old sprint star than has been seen so far. Until now, Lyles has mostly been portrayed as the free-spirited, effervescent speedster who is more than happy to take up where Usain Bolt left off when it comes to keeping his sport fun and eminently watchable.
A sometimes rapper with an eye for fashion, he ran, and won, the 200 meters at last year’s world championships with his hair dyed silver.
Lyles’ outgoing nature has made it easy to overlook some of the challenges he faced growing up in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia: a sometimes debilitating struggle with asthma; diagnoses of attention-deficit disorder and dyslexia that complicated his schooling, especially in the early days.
He also faced the same issues as any African American boy — learning the harsh realities of what it means to be a black male in the U.S. The message Lyles’ mom, Keisha Caine Bishop, sent continually: Don’t do anything that makes people perceive you as a threat.
“But the sad part is that no matter how nonthreatening you appear, you can still be a victim,” Bishop said.
Of the lifetime of slights and abuse that African Americans absorb, Lyles said: “I think a lot of people think it happens as a onemoment situation, which it doesn’t. It’s more a buildup.”
Across all sports, the Olympics has among the most longstanding and complex relationships between its leaders and its athletes of color, especially in the U.S. It’s a history filled with missteps and miscommunications that has brought everyone from Muhammad Ali to Smith and Carlos to Owens into the conversation.
Most recently, the spotlight fell on hammer thrower Gwen Berry, who lashed out at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee for what she felt was a ham-handed attempt at expressing solidarity with black athletes following Floyd’s killing. Last summer, the USOPC handed Berry a 12-month probation for raising her fist on the medals stand at the Pan American Games, a gesture that violates rules against political protests at the Olympics that have essentially gone unchanged over the 52 years since Smith and Carlos got kicked out of Mexico City for doing the same.