Noah Lyles opens up about ‘World champion of what’ comment that led to his ‘phone blowing up’ with extreme BACKLASH messages

Noah Lyles had claimed that the NBA should not to refer their championship winners as 'world champions'.

Noah Lyles opens up about ‘World champion of what’ comment that led to his ‘phone blowing up’ with extreme BACKLASH messages

Noah Lyles (Image via Imago)

During the World Athletics Championship in August 2023, sprinter Noah Lyles was on top of the world. The American star would help his country achieve a sweep of 100 m, 200 m, and 4×100 m races and bagged three gold medals. However, his own countrymen soon turned against him.

After his triumph, Noah Lyles would boldly compare the world of athletics with NBA and roast the league with the comments, “World champion of what? The United States?“. This was in reference to the league using ‘world champions‘ to describe their winners. This led to extreme backlash from the basketball community including Kevin Durant and Drake. Lyles has now looked back at the time and opened about the backlash he received.

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Speaking in an interview with Fox News, the 26-year-old said he was celebrating with his friends when he realized what had happened.

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When I first seen the comment, I’m at the club celebrating three gold medals. We’re walking out, all of a sudden, my phone’s blowing up, and my boy’s like, ‘You need to tell KD to shut up.
Noah Lyles said on the backlash.

Durant had left a comment on an Instagram post saying “Somebody help this brother”. These people though weren’t the only ones who attacked him. Analyst Stephen A. Smith would call him an “ignorant” only to later apologize to him and agree with his remark.

Noah Lyles claims people who lived in the US or outside of it agree with his words

After Noah Lyles dropped his bold comment he knew there would some who would not take his words kindly. He though never thought that the backlash would reach this high level. Lyles has now claimed that people who have resided in the US before or those who live outside of it, agree with his remark.

Noah Lyles
Noah Lyles (Image via Imago)

While speaking with Fox News, Lyles said:

It’s the U.S. vs. the world. And anybody that has lived in or is outside the U.S. agrees with my comments. Most of the people in the U.S. do not.
Noah Lyles on his world champion comment.

He further added that he had used this comments before too but that time it did not bring in this much attention. This was one of the key reason why he was surprised by the extreme backlash against him on this topic.

Despite this, there were some who came into his superstar. NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo backed him and claimed he was saying the obvious thing. This though led to furious reaction from basketball fans towards the Milwaukee Bucks player.

Lyles is trying to move on from that incident and is busy in preparing for a huge year. The sprinter will be part of Team USA at the Olympics in Paris and will be aiming to replicate his success from Hungary last year and hope to break or at least tie some of the records of legendary sprinter Usain Bolt.

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