Tokyo (AFP) – Noah Lyles joined Usain Bolt in winning four successive world 200 metres titles on Friday, adding to one of the greatest medal collections of any sprinter in history. His victory in one of the closest Olympic 100m finals in history in Paris last year will also live long in the memory.
Behind Lyles’ success, though, lies a series of health problems, especially asthma, that have dogged him throughout his life. The 28-year-old American also suffers from dyslexia and ADHD, and at times depression, which hit the gregarious personality hard during the Covid pandemic. He has admitted it seriously affected his performance at the Tokyo Olympics, where spectators were absent and the restrictions numerous.
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As a child, there were many worrying moments due to his asthma, which kicked in when he was three. “He couldn’t eat without coughing. He couldn’t play,” his mother Keisha Caine Bishop told ESPN. “His quality of life went down.” Lyles spent endless nights in hospital as a boy — something that is hard to imagine seeing him in full flow on the track.
Back in his high school days, racing would sap Lyles’ energy, and he would take to his bed for two days. However, time and again, Lyles has shown a resilience and an admirable ability to talk about issues many prefer to keep locked away. Such was the case with his depression. A highly emotional Lyles revealed to reporters how much he had suffered after he won Olympic bronze in the 200m at those pandemic-affected Tokyo Games, when the self-styled showman of the track found it hard to perform without an audience.
“I knew there was a lot of people out there like me who are scared to say something or to even start that journey,” he said. “I want you to know that it’s OK to not feel good, and you can go out and talk to somebody professionally, or even get on medication, because this is a serious issue. You don’t want to wake up one day and just think, you know, ‘I don’t want to be here anymore.'”
– ‘Does not define me’ – Lyles has been fortunate in having his mother around — she brought up him, brother Josephus and sister Abby on her own — and a sympathetic teacher at Alexandria City High School in Virginia, formerly known as T. C. Williams High. Leslie A. Jones, who combines teaching English with public speaking and theatre classes, encouraged Lyles to express himself — and she gradually saw his confidence blossom.
In one confidence-building exercise, Lyles brought his starting blocks onto the stage of the school’s theatre and showed his fellow students how to set them up. “He literally taught us how to get in and out of the blocks at the start of a race,” Jones recalled to AFP. Jones’s nurturing of Lyles worked wonders — the epitome of the phrase that from acorns do oak trees grow.
His track exploits and lively personality have gained Lyles the recognition he has long craved in the United States, where track and field has to fight for attention in a crowded sports market. A documentary series “Untitled: The Noah Lyles Project,” a prominent role in the Netflix series “Sprint,” and an appearance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” have raised his profile.
Nevertheless, he has admitted he still suffers from anxiety, and when he does, he likes to hide himself away for “four to five days.” “I have to do what I love, which is like building Legos, making music, playing video games, you know, being with my friends,” he told GQ Sport. Lyles, though, is not one for self-pity and prefers to encourage those who, like him, suffer from mental health issues and physical illnesses.
Three years on from the crushing disappointment in Tokyo, Lyles took to his social media after that 100m Olympic gold in Paris to say to fellow sufferers: “I will tell you that what you have does not define what you can become.”
© 2024 AFP
