Tyreek Hill Criticizes Noah Lyles' 'World Champion' Comments, Says He Could Beat Him in a Race

Tyreek Hill has taken umbrage at Noah Lyles' suggestion last year that NBA and NFL champions can't call themselves "world champions."

In a recent interview with Kay Adams for the Up and Adams Show, the Miami Dolphins wide receiver was asked for his thoughts on Lyles' "world champion" comments from last year. "Noah Lyles can't say nothing after what just happened to him," said Hill. "Then you wanna come out and pretend like he's sick. I feel like that's horseradish. For him to do that and say that, we're not world champions of our sport... Like, c'mon bro, just speak on what you know about, and that's track."

He was asked if he was interested in challenging Lyles to a race, and he seemed very confident that he could beat the Olympic gold medalist. "I would beat Noah Lyles," he said. "I wouldn't beat him by a lot, but I would beat Noah Lyles. And guess what? When I beat him, I'ma put on a COVID mask and let him know I mean business. 'Cause I do mean business."

After making the comments, he doubled down with a pair of tweets. "I like me in a race 2028 I'm running," said Hill. In the second post, which included a photo of him at the World Junior Athletics Championships in Barcelona, Spain, in 2012, he added, "2028 calling my shot."

While Hill, 30, does have a background in track and field, his suggestion that he could beat the 27-year-old sprinter is a bold one. Lyles picked up a gold medal for the 100-meter dash at the Paris Olympics, with a time that clocked in at 9.79 seconds. That's 0.21 seconds off the world record, previously set by Usain Bolt when he was 22 in 2009.

As for Hill's assertion that Lyles "faked" an illness, the sprinter revealed that he tested positive for COVID-19 just days before he participated in the 200-meter sprint.

"I tested positive around 5 a.m. Tuesday morning," said Lyles, who spoke to reporters from behind a KN95 mask, per ESPN. "I woke up in the middle of the night just feeling really chills, aching, sore throat. And those were kind of a lot of the symptoms I've always had right before getting COVID, and I was just like, 'I need to test this one.'"

He quarantined at a hotel but said he still wanted to participate in the race. "I still wanted to run; they said it was still possible," he said. "So we just stayed away from everybody and just tried to take it round by round. And to be honest, I knew if I wanted to come out here and win, I had to give everything I had from the get-go. I didn't have any time to save energy." Despite the diagnosis, he still picked up a bronze medal in the 200-meter race.

When Lyles questioned how winning the NBA Finals makes someone a "world champion," he sparked something of a controversy within the basketball and football communities.

“I watch the NBA Finals and they have ‘world champion’ on their head. World champion of what? The United States?” he said. "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."

More recently, he addressed rumors that he didn't go to a release event for Anthony Edwards' AE 1 signature sneaker because he didn't think he deserved it. He clarified, in a post on social media, that it was down to a scheduling conflict.