Lyles has finally responded to the backlash he received from NBA stars following the 'NBA world champions' jibe last week.
Reigning 100 and 200 meters world champion Noah Lyles has responded to the backlash he has received from basketball stars for his feather-ruffling comments about NBA winners calling themselves world champions after taking Budapest by storm earlier this month.
Lyles appeared to write off the achievements of NBA stars, describing them as champions of the US but not the World moments after he had delivered gold in the 200m race final last week.
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This naturally triggered some of the game’s biggest stars, including Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard, who appeared to dare Lyles to repeat his sentiments again in their social media responses to a clip of his interview that went viral.
Lyles has revealed that he is ‘glad’ that a conversation on the matter has been triggered after being an ‘underline’ that has gone under the radar ‘for so long'.
“To be honest, I am just glad they were having the conversation,” Lyles told FloTrack. “It has been an underline for so long and no one wanted to talk about it, “ he added.
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“With everybody now saying things about it, you have dialogue. Of course, maybe there will be opinions that will change and maybe there won’t be but at least we are having the conversation.”
Lyles believes the world ‘is on his side’ while his own country is against him following his remarks given how huge basketball is in the country.
“It is funny, if you look at my comments, you will have people in the US versus the world. Everyone in the world is very much on my side and everybody in the US is usually leaning on the opinion of the NBA.
“But again, that just goes to show how we view ourselves in the US and again, I am just glad that we are having that conversation."
Lyles won three gold medals at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest this past weekend and won a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
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