Noah Lyles. Mike Marsland/Getty Images for Omega
Fresh off Paris 2024, olympian Noah Lyles broke his silence on his past controversial comments about the NBA.
In an interview with the Associated Press on Sunday, August 11, Lyles was asked whether or not he considers the U.S. men’s basketball team “world champions” after their gold medal win against France at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“It’s not a thing of if I consider [it] or not — they are,” Lyles, 27, told the outlet. “They’re Olympic champions and Olympic champions, you face the whole world. They saw how difficult it is. Of course, they came out on top and, of course, I knew they would. Because we have some of the greatest athletes. But they saw you can’t just slap everybody together and say, ‘This is a great team.’”
The track and field star was questioned in August last year when he called into question why basketball players call themselves “world champions” when they win the NBA finals.
“You know the thing that hurts me the most?” Lyles asked reporters in a press conference after winning the 100-meter final at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary. “It’s that I have to watch the NBA finals and they have ‘world champion’ on [their] head. World champion of what?! The United States?”
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He added, “Don’t get me wrong, I love the U.S. at times, but that ain’t the world. We are the world. We have almost every country out here fighting, thriving, putting on [their] flag to show that they are represented. There ain’t no flags in the NBA.”
On Saturday, August 10, the U.S. men’s basketball team secured their 98-87 win over France after Stephen Curry scored four three-point throws in the game’s final three minutes. This marked the fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal for the U.S. men’s basketball team. The win also came after a nailbiter of a semifinal game against Serbia on Thursday, August 8, where the Americans skated by with a 95-91 win.
For now, Team USA’s victory in the men’s basketball final seems to have satisfied Lyles’ requirements for World Champ status.
“There was a ton of countries out there who said, ‘Hey, you know, we’re not lying down just because we don’t play in the NBA. You know, we have cohesion, we have our own way of playing the game,’ and there was a lot of close calls,” Lyles told the Associated Press on Sunday. “But, again, like myself, I have confidence in the U.S. basketball team that they were gonna make it all the way.”
Still, the drama continued as Lyles addressed past speculation that he had dissed Team USA player Anthony Edwards by declining an invitation to his Adidas shoe release party. (TIME included a mention of the shoe party in a June profile about Lyles.)
“There is a rumor going around that I did not go to @theantedwards_ shoe release because he didn’t deserve it,” Lyles wrote via X on Monday, August 12. “That is not the case he definitely deserves his shoes he is an amazing player. The problem was finding time based on my prior engagements.”
The track and field star added, “Congratulations on Becoming an Olympic champion!”
