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Olympics 100m champion Noah Lyles has revealed how he fought depression, forcing him to fake it for long, with thoughts of quitting the sport running through his mind.
Olympics 100m champion Noah Lyles has revealed that he contemplated quitting running three years ago as depression took its toll on him.
Between the 2020-2021 phase, Lyles was not his true self as he was fighting depression in the months leading up to the Tokyo Olympics where he managed bronze in 200m.
Lyles admits he could have performed better at the Games had he been at his best but had to fight a number of battles as even during this difficult phase, he still suffered setbacks.
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“I’ll take you back to 2021; I’m coming out of depression, you know; I’ve already been on the medication, starting 2021, and I came off the medication around May 2021,” Lyles said on the Beyond The Records podcast hosted by him and fellow sprinters Rai Benjamin and Grant Holloway.
He was receiving pressure from different quarters to stop using his antidepressants but he felt that was not the right advice.
“Just stop taking it and you’ll be good,” he remembers being told, but he decided to cut down slowly instead of stopping taking the drugs altogether.
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“I didn’t have that excitement; I didn’t have that Noah spark, you know, and because of that, I was like, I don’t think I can run or race without that spark; it’s just not me anymore,” he added on the thing that led to the mantra: “A lot of fake it to make it in that moment.”
To add stress to his already bad situation, Lyles’ therapist went down with an illness, meaning he was not getting the treatment he badly needed.
“So, I wasn’t getting the treatment I needed; I wasn’t hitting time that I knew I could be running and I’m like for a while I’m like I don’t think I got it this year, like if I can make this team, you know that’s a great accomplishment because I don’t feel like I have it in me,” says Lyles on the doubts he had about himself and even making Team USA to the Tokyo Olympics.
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14:17 - 12.12.2024
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Olympics 100m champion Noah Lyles has faced backlash after slamming Team USA for their handling of his COVID-19 controversy.
It is at this moment that he thought about taking a break or quitting the sport.
“For a little bit, there was that split—like two days or maybe I just need to move on from track, get myself together. Would I come back? I’d always come back in my head,” he remembers.
Heading into the Games, few knew what Lyles was going through and being the world 200m champion, he was the favourite to win gold but could only manage bronze.
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14:13 - 12.12.2024
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It is a medal that left him disappointed but perhaps acted as a motivation for a major comeback which he has since made, winning another 200m title at the 2022 World Championships before adding another and the 100m crown in Budapest last year and he finally won his first Olympics gold, this time in 100m at the Paris 2024 Games.
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