Why Noah Lyles is the nerdiest world's fastest man ever

When you think of the world's fastest man, some of the things that probably don't immediately come to mind along with it are Dragon Ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh and League of Legends.

But American sprinter Noah Lyles is changing all that as he might just well be the nerdiest world's fastest man of all time - and we're here for it.

Lyles won gold in the prestigious 100m event at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and he's got his sights set on two more, in the 200m and 4x100m relay events.

After winning, while draped in an American flag, Lyles dropped a Kamehameha gesture from Dragon Ball Z.

Lyles has a history of showing off his interests through the sport he loves and breaking perceptions of what people think about anime, card gaming and video games.

Sticking with Dragon Ball Z, in 2019, in the men's 200m World Championships final Lyles had silver dye in his hair which he later said was a tribute to Goku and his changing hair colours when he went Super Saiyan.

At this point in his career, he would even do a Spirit Bomb motion to hype himself up.

Lyles won gold in that event, his first World Championships win.

Men's 200m Final | World Athletics Championships Doha 2019Welcome to the World Athletics Watch Party, join the conversation on Twitter with our hashtag #WatchWorldAthletics. Noah Lyles ...

In 2023, Lyles showed off his PC gaming setup for playing League of Legends.

He showed headphones with a detachable microphone, a customisable keyboard which changes colours and a special edition League of Legends mouse.

And it's all colour co-ordinated, of course.

MY GAMING SETUP | Noah Lyles #shortsNoah Lyles, an American professional track and field sprinter who has been competing in 100 meters as well as 200m is currently ...

More recently, in the American Olympic trials, Lyles showed off a number of Yu-Gi-Oh cards and even a Duel Disk.

Lyles reportedly said there was a bet with Chase Ealey, a world champion shotputter, because both love anime and if Lyles continued to draw them before races, Ealey would wear Naruto inspired Rock Lee leg weights.

Ahead of a heat from the 100m event, Lyles stuck to it and pulled out a Blue Eyes White Dragon card.

He went viral for this and showed off another Yu-Gi-Oh card ahead of another 100m race the next day, this time in the semi-final.

It was Exodia the Forbidden One.

He went on to win the 100m event and even posed with the card while showing off his gold medal.

Noah Lyles poses with Exodia the Forbidden One after winning gold in the men's 100m at the American Olympic trials / Christian Petersen, Getty Images

When played in Yu-Gi-Oh, Exodia the Forbidden One combined with four other cards of the left and right arms and left and right legs means the player automatically wins the game.

Lyles pulled out two more cards for his 200m run, this time the Left and Right Arm of the Forbidden One.

With Joe Fahn, Lyles gatecrashed an interview while speaking about Magic: The Gathering, a tabletop and free-to-play digital collectable card game.

Back to Yu-Gi-Oh and Lyles posed at the trials with a Duel Disk along with all five pieces of Exodia the Forbidden One, along with the Blues Eyes White Dragon he first pulled out.

To celebrate what Lyles had achieved in winning Olympic gold, NBC reimagined him on a Yu-Gi-Oh card of his own.

Lyles has the 200m and 4x100m events still to go at the 2024 Olympics.

But it looks like he's already got planned what he's going to be doing afterwards.

There seems to be a key reason as to why Lyles is keen to show this side of him.

He is a founder of the Lyles Foundation, a charity that "empowers youth through the advancement of health and wellness in communities nationwide" and says "let's bring our abilities and passions together to affect real change".

Lyles is also quite outspoken and comments he made about the NBA title holders not being "world champions" have resurfaced since his Olympic 100m win.

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