American sprinter Noah Lyles took home two gold medals from Paris at the 2024 Olympics, including a gold in the men's 100-meter dash. It was a long road to get there for the acclaimed runner, especially when considering his "strict" religious upbringing.
Lyles has had a complicated relationship with religion and faith, which he opened up about for the first time in a post-Olympics appearance on the Everybody Wants to Be Us podcast. He gave his "quick religious story" that was a rollercoaster, to say the least.
"I actually grew up in a cult," Lyles stated plainly, immediately bursting into laughter. He went on to clarify what it was actually like.
"It was a cult. It just wasn't at the level of, 'Yeah, we're going to drink from the Kool-Aid,'" he explained. "But it was super strict. All the moms had to be homeschooling their kids and the father was the head of the household and the church told you who you could date [and] who you couldn't date. If you got married it had to be through us—that type of behavior."
His parents realized something was wrong, but not with their faith.
"We left, and that's why we moved to North Carolina because we were going to start another church, only to figure out they wanted to do the same thing except they wanted to be the head and not the tail, so we left that," he recounted.
"That kinda really messed up my view on church and it definitely messed up my mom's view," he concluded. "She never lost her faith in the religion, and I think having instilled that in us at a young age, it made it easier for me to go throughout my own journey."
Lyles' triumph in Paris amid a COVID diagnosis certainly begs the question of him being divinely protected.
