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Olympic gold medalist Noah Lyles has revealed that he grew up in a cult long before competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In an episode of the Everybody Wants to Be Us podcast, the 27-year-old athlete spoke candidly about his unorthodox upbringing, revealing that he grew up in a a “super strict” church environment before his family moved to North Carolina.
“I actually grew up in a cult,” the Olympic sprinter said, noting it wasn’t like the one at the center of the Jonestown massacre.
“It was a cult. It just wasn’t at the level of, ‘Yeah, okay. We’re gonna drink the Kool-Aid.’ But it was super strict.”
“All moms had to be homeschooling their kids and the father was the head of the household,” he continued.
“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 Kevin Lyles and Keisha Caine eventually decided to take their family out of that environment, he said, and they moved to North Carolina – only to find that the local church there also practiced similar tactics.
“That’s why we moved to North Carolina,” he explained. “We were going to start another church, only to figure out they were going to do the same thing, except they wanted to be the head. So we left that.”
This experience “messed up” Lyles’ and his mother’s views on being a part of a church, he said.
But, while they struggle to put their faith in an organized church, Lyles said that his mom still practices her faith and that her commitment to do so inspired him to do the same.
“Having instilled that in us at a young age, it made it easier for me to go throughout my own journey,” Lyles added.
“Everybody gets that idea like, ‘Is there really a God?’ And something that I love is that when I was young she said, ‘God says when you lack faith, ask for a test.’ And he will provide the test.”
He credits his faith with helping him push past the symptoms of swine flu in ninth grade to participate in trials for the World Youth track-and-field team.
At the time, Noah became the youngest person to make the World Youth team, putting him on a trajectory that would eventually lead him to win gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the men’s 100-meter final.
On 4 August, he finished as the number one sprinter in the world with a time of 9.79 at the Stade de France, clinching the gold medal for Team USA.
To this day, he still considers himself a devout Christian, he said – though he doesn’t practice his faith to the standards of organized religion.
“I don’t have time to go to church every weekend,” he laughed, noting he has other priorities: “I’ve got to run.”