Why are so many athletes arrogant?

Well, they kind of need to be.

A week ago, I wrote a piece defending the notion that NBA winners can rightfully call themselves “world champions.” In that piece, I had some pretty strong things to say about Noah Lyles, the star track and field athlete (and now Olympic gold medalist) who famously challenged the “world champion” term in a press conference last year.

Akshay—who actually competes in track—had a pretty lengthy conversation with me about the world champion debate, Noah Lyles, and athletic arrogance at large. This piece is the product of that discussion, as Akshay was interested in giving his take on the dominant criticism against Noah Lyles, which is that he’s too arrogant—an attack leveled on several other competitors in other sports as well.

Enough said, his take is below:

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Letsile Tebogo, Botswana’s first Olympic Gold medalist and the current world’s fastest 200m runner, calmly stated in an interview that no, he could not be the face of Track and Field. How could he be? He’s not “an arrogant or a loud person like Noah [Lyles]”, tacking on that he believes Lyles, instead, to be the face of the sport. 

Tebogo dropped this quote after smoking Noah in his main event. Ironically enough, Tebogo himself is responsible for a great deal of showboating during his own races, as his 2022 U20 World Record proves.

Speaking of arrogant Olympic gold medalists in the 100m and the 200m, one would be remiss not to bring up Usain Bolt and his own exceptional confidence, surpassed only by his speed. Bolt would go so far as to slow down to celebrate his win before completing his races, leading many to believe his already titanic world records could have been even faster had he simply run his best. 

Between all these arrogant, top-class sprinters, Noah Lyles is special in a way the others aren’t. He’s not the fastest—Usain is (was) the fastest. You don’t instinctively want to root for him—he’s not the underdog Tebogo, nonchalantly facing down the top athletes of global superpowers. Lyles is special because most people despise him. He’s ticked off fans of every sport, of every country, everywhere. Still, in doing so, he’s captured the whole world’s attention. 

Lyles is a showboat. He’s a performer. He drums up controversy which he cycles into even more controversy. Between those praying for his downfall and those praying for his success, there have rarely been more eyes on Track and Field compared to when Lyles runs. Would half the people supporting Tebogo’s claims of Lyles’s arrogance even know who the man who won the 200m was, or watched any part of his interviews, had he not been criticizing the American sprinter?

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Sports are performances. They're an industry of entertainment. Nobody cares how fast you can run a 100-meter dash—until you’ve got a country on your jersey, a logo on your spikes, and a crowd of adoring fans waiting to see your next move. 

Track and Field isn’t the most entertaining sport. Athletes will train their entire lives to run 50.35 seconds or throw a javelin 89.45 meters - honestly, even as an athlete, I only care about events where people I’m invested in perform, like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone or Neeraj Chopra. 

But the “arrogant” athletes at the forefront of Track and Field make the sport interesting by sweeping us along with them in their stories. They force us to be invested in them, whether we want them to win or to lose. There’s Sha’Carri Richardson, an Olympic silver and gold medalist who makes statements with her stand-out sprinting outfits. There’s 5000m gold medalist Jakob Ingebrigtsen and 1500m silver medalist Josh Kerr, both of whom were humbled by gold medalist Cole Hocker after essentially disregarding that anyone besides either of them even stood a chance at gold in the 1500m. There’s Quincy Wilson, the record-breaking Olympic gold medalist 16-year-old, and Quincy Hall, the Olympic gold medalist whose insane kick was honestly just really cool, both 400m runners. 

Love or hate any of them, all these arrogant athletes add personality to sports that spice up our viewing experience. We need stories. Lyles gave us that. Ingebrigtsen and Kerr gave us that. Richardson gave us that. They’re all performers on the world’s stage, and we sit on our couches judging how they choose to capture our attention when their displays of arrogance are probably as much for our benefit as for their athletic pride. I mean, c’mon, everyone, there’s no way we’re parasocial enough to believe what we view on NBC is any real fraction of who these athletes are as people? Remember that before you judge them too harshly.

P.S—Lyles is clearly doing something right—even Usain’s a fan of his style.