Noah Lyles Knew He Could 'Still Put on a Great Performance' with COVID: 'I Was Gonna Tackle It' (Exclusive)

Noah Lyles wasn’t going to let COVID get in the way of winning an Olympic medal in Paris.

The Team USA track and field star, 27, was just two days away from competing in the men’s 200-meter final on Aug. 8 when he tested positive for COVID — and despite the aches and pains, he was able to bring home a bronze medal in the race.

In an interview with PEOPLE on Sunday, Aug. 11, Lyles, who is partnering with Tide, says he’s finally feeling “a lot better,” despite some fatigue.

“I was just telling my girlfriend, I’m like, ‘I am so tired,’ and she’s like, ‘Well, you did just win the 100 with COVID, and still not getting as much rest as possible,” says Lyles, who has been dating fellow Olympic sprinter Junelle Bromfield of Jamaica since 2022.

The athlete was fresh off a gold medal win in the men’s 100-meter final when he realized he had COVID. To keep himself in a positive mindset, he says, he did all he could not to think about his positive test.

“[I was like] ‘Let’s try and keep this as normal as possible,’ knowing that I’ve handled stuff like this in the past,” he says. “I’ve run very close to after having contracted COVID, many times. [It’s about] knowing that I was made for moments like this and I've trained all my life. I know that I can go out there and still put on a great performance, and it’s an all or nothing scenario, because nothing is promised tomorrow. So I might as well take advantage of today.”

Lyles says there was never a doubt in his mind that he’d compete, despite dealing with fatigue, chills, aches and the need to get his asthma under control so as not to risk a respiratory issue like bronchitis.

“As long as I knew that I was allowed to, I was gonna tackle it,” he says of running the 200-meter.

Of course, he did tackle the event, and ultimately walked away with a spot on the podium. Still, his COVID meant he had to sit out of the men’s 4x100 relay final — a decision that proved to be a tough one a day later when the team was disqualified during the race for a botched handoff.

Two days later, Lyles calls the race a “low time,” but acknowledges that “unfortunately, it does happen” in the sport.

“When you have a stage as big as the Olympics and the crowd is so loud that you can’t even hear your own thoughts, it’s hard to prepare for that,” he says. “In a relay you have four people all trying to work together, and unfortunately with me having to step back because of COVID, it was up to the relay coach and the relay team to make a decision on how they were best going to adapt to the situation. So yes, it does suck and everybody’s going to have an opinion. But trust me when I say everybody is truly trying their best and they are giving their best foot forward.”

Lyles, who praised the team’s refusal to throw any one person under the bus, says he’s already looking ahead to Los Angeles in 2028, which he predicts will be a Games of “pure entertainment.”

For Lyles, life in the spotlight has brought some perks; in June he starred in a commercial for Tide alongside track and field legend Carl Lewis that featured the pair jovially accepting the fact that shirt stains are inevitable, no matter how many medals you have to your name.

“I want to see the older generation and the current generation constantly mixed because I feel that some sports do that very well, but we don’t get to see that as much in ours,” he says. “So I thought it was really cool [to be in the ad with Lewis].”

Lewis, 63, has had some harsh words for Team USA track and field on social media following the failed relay race. But Lyles brushes any concerns with the program aside, citing a dominant performance in Paris that yielded 34 medals, including 14 gold.

“I couldn’t have been more proud to be a part of this team. Every time we ran, the expectation was taken to a new level. We flew past expectations, we were grabbing medals that nobody thought we would take,” he says. “It’s so cool to see history broken, and to know that I was able to help that process.”

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