Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill said he can beat Olympic gold medalist Noah Lyles in a race.
Who would win in a race? Someone called the fastest man in the world or someone called "Cheetah"?
Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill is confident that he knows the answer.
“I will beat Noah Lyles,” Hill said when asked if he'd like to race the Olympic gold-medal winning sprinting star during an interview on the "Up and Adams Show." “I wouldn’t beat him by a lot, but I will beat Noah Lyles.”
The fastest man in the world has not been so quick to respond.
Lyles won gold for the United States in the 100-meter event last week at the Paris Olympics with a personal-best time of 9.784 seconds. Lyles had been vocal about his goal of winning two gold medals at the Olympics, but he finished third in the 200-meter. After the race, he was taken off the track in a wheelchair and later revealed he had COVID-19.
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Despite his double medal success for the U.S., Lyles has taken some jabs from some of his fellow athletically-gifted countrymen because of comments he made prior to the Olympics.
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Lyles, at the 2023 Track and Field World Championships in Budapest, irked some professional athletes with his definition of the phrase "world champion."
"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," he said. "World champion of what? The United States?”
Hill, who won a Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs, is the latest athlete to fire back.
“Noah Lyles can't say nothing after what just happened to him, you know what I'm saying?" Hill said. "Then, you want to come out and pretend like he’s sick. I feel like that’s like horseradish. For him to do that and say that we’re not world champions of our sport? Come on, bruh. Just speak on what you know about, and that’s track.”
Hill, during his eight-year career, has often been referred to as the fastest man in the NFL -- and, of course, as "Cheetah." And he's no stranger to the track.
A world-class sprinter in high school, Hill ran a 9.98-second 100-meter race in junior college. In 2012 at age 18, he ran the 200-meter in 20.14 seconds, placing him sixth in the U.S. to qualify for Olympic trials. Hill elected not to run in trials at the time.
Last season, Hill clocked three of the 10 fastest speeds recorded by an NFL ball carrier, per Next Gen Stats, with a top speed of 22.01 seconds, the third-highest in the league. He is the NFL's fastest ball carrier of the Next Gen Stats era, having reached a speed of 23.24 miles per hour in 2016 on a 105-yard kickoff return that was nullified by a holding penalty.
Lyles reportedly reached a top speed of 27.09 mph during his 100-meter run at the Olympics.
“And guess what?" Hill said. "When I beat him, I’m gonna put on a COVID mask, and let him know I mean business. Because I do mean business.”
"Cheetah" also seems to mean business about running in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, making a post on X shortly after his comments about the fastest man in the world.
“I like me in a race 2028 I’m running,” Hill wrote.
He later posted a photo of himself in a track suit, writing "2028 calling my shot."
