As fun as the track and field community is, there are some dark sides to this sport as well. Noah Lyles has spoken up about them. Criticism is there in almost every field, but there are very few people who stand up against it with reasonable answers and Lyles has turned out to be one of them. The World Champion never steps back from voicing his opinions, and this time was no different.

He recently sat in a men’s mental health conversation where he spoke about some of the most crucial things that take place in the track world. One conversation that turned heads was when he opened up about the struggles that athletes face to climb the stairs of success. He gracefully explained this by linking it to his own experience.

Noah Lyles shares an unheard problem that athletes face, amid all the chaos

The World Champion and sprinting sensation Noah Lyles shared a video on his YouTube channel of him being in a deep conversation about men’s health. One of the major discussions here was of the struggles faced by the athletes. He expressed that selfishness is one of the major things that athletes have to adapt to get to a successful position and how difficult it is can never be understood by anybody. Noah Lyles stated, “You have to be so selfish, and you are thinking that you are a main character within the world”.

However, he also stated that feeling this way of being selfish is completely fine when on the field, but athletes are completely different when not competing. Lyles shared his experience of facing backlash for being a bad person to his opponents. He clarified this with an example of his race with Zharnel Hughes. After Hughes broke the British record, Noah Lyles not only just congratulated him, but also gave him a piece of motivation. With this, Lyles also shared the struggles of confidence since his childhood.

Lyles rolls back the calendar and divulges some sensitive issues he faced

Noah Lyles has faced confidence issues since he was a kid. It has taken him a long time to reach the level of ease and confidence he has today. He expressed that “Confidence was not my thing”, throughout most of his childhood. He was always facing some or the other crucial struggles on his own that never made enough space for confidence.

Read more: Noah Lyles in Awe of “Inspiring” Message by Fellow Track and Field Star, Days After Her Memoir Hit the Shelves

He admitted he was either trying to ‘just breathe’ with asthma or he was shifting from home school to regular school. With this, he also faced ADD and Dyslexia which made school harder for him. With learning disabilities, today’s famous sprinter also faced bullying amidst which he was trying to find his place within that system, only to realize that it was never his place. This confidence only started building up once Noah Lyles stepped into the world of track and field.

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