Athletics: Noah Lyles’ recommendation to athletes competing on the Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026

Athletics star Noah Lyles had one factor on his thoughts by the point he reached Olympics.com within the blended zone on the 2026 Rome Diamond League, getting the PURE Athletics Championship Belt from coaching companion and rising star Jordan Anthony.

“All I cared about tonight was making sure that I won that belt back,” he instructed Olympics.com, referring to the bodily “heavyweight” style belt awarded to the group’s quickest runner. “[I needed] to make sure he gave it back to me, because it’s been with him for a little too long.” 

Anthony first took the belt off the eight-time world champion’s again on the 2026 USA Track and Field Indoor Championships in March, beating the reigning Olympic 100 metres champion within the males’s 60m with a time of 6.45 seconds to Lyles’s 6.51 seconds.

Lyles earned the correct to grab the belt again from Anthony on Thursday (4 June), successful the lads’s 100m in a time of 9.88 seconds on the Stadio Olimpico. And in typical trend, he was able to make an announcement. In this case, reminding Anthony to cough up the belt. 

But whereas that light-hearted trade of honours dominated the dialog after the race, Olympics.com sought to remind Lyles of his very first main worldwide win, which got here within the boys’ 200m on the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games. 

“That was actually the first track meet that me and Junelle [Lyles] (his wife) went to together,” he recalled, turning from celebratory to sentimental on a dime. “It was my first gold medal on an international stage.”

A gold medallist within the males’s 100m on the Olympic Games Paris 2024, he has come a good distance since that fortuitous debut, racking up three Olympic medals, ten World Athletics Championships medals and numerous Diamond League victories. 

Yet, the fundamental point out of the Youth Olympic Games nonetheless ignites a spark inside him, as evidenced by the real pleasure in his tone. When requested what recommendation he’d go all the way down to the athletes set to compete on the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, he saved it easy.

“Go out there [and] have fun,” proclaimed the worldwide famous person. “You do not gotta be any totally different.

“Everybody just wants to see you compete,” he added. “There’s no pressure, have some fun.”