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Junelle Lyles of Jamaica seen during the Women’s 400m heats on day ten of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Credit: Ian MacNicol/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Junelle Lyles revealed on PEOPLE’s WAG World series why she retired from track and field after competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics
- She shared that achieving her lifelong Olympic dream didn’t bring the fulfillment she had anticipated
- Lyles, who’s married to fellow track Olympian Noah Lyles, is now pursuing creative passions and exploring life beyond running
Junelle Lyles is now chasing more than just a runner’s high.
The two-time Olympian, 28, opened up on the latest episode of PEOPLE’s WAG World series about why achieving her running “dream” that she’d set out to accomplish since she was eight years old wasn’t what she had expected.
Lyles, a Jamaica native who represented her country at the Olympics at the 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Games, knew she had a “gift” since she was young. But training was “nonexistent” at that age, she tells WAG World host Skyler Caruso in the episode released exclusively on the PEOPLE app on Thursday, July 30.
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Junelle Lyles on the set of PEOPLE’s “WAG World” series.
Credit: Astrid Stawiarz
“Honestly, we were just running around,” she remembers. “I feel as if it was just a gift from God really, because I wasn’t training. Moving to America now and seeing how different the track culture is, I see six year olds training and racing. We didn’t have that. It was just fun... just playing.”
Jamaica’s rich legacy in the sport had Lyles’ eyes locked on the best. Eight-time Olympic track-and field-sprinter Veronica Campbell Brown, who is the second of three women in history to win two-consecutive Olympic 200-meter gold medals, inspired her to pursue the sport professionally.
“I remember getting up early in the mornings. It was the 2004 Athens Olympics, and we saw her dominating,” she recalls. “She was on the podium crying. A woman from Jamaica looked exactly like me, just on top of the world winning — and I was like, ‘Okay, I like that.’ ”
In 2016, Lyles won four gold medals at the Girls and Boys Championship in Jamaica, a feat she says was a “really big deal” because it put her in a “really good position” to make the Olympic team. She went on to win a bronze medal at Royal Juniors.
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Junelle Lyles of Team Jamaica competes during the 4 x 400m Relay Mixed final on day eight of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Credit: Kevin Voigt/Getty
“Noah was also at that meet. He got a gold medal,” she says of her now-husband, Noah Lyles, a three-time Olympian for Team USA (with 1 gold and two bronze to his name, plus eight World Championship golds) who is considered the fastest man racing today.
At the time, Junelle had only “heard about” Noah. “He was quite popular. I wasn’t that popular,” she says with a laugh while looking back on their early friendship, which would eventually evolve into a whirlwind romance five years later and ultimately a wedding on April 4, 2026.
Junelle won bronze in the women’s 4x400 meter relay at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at age 22, but standing on the podium alongside her teammates — Roneisha McGregor, Janieve Russell and Stacey-Ann Williams — was shockingly a feeling she didn’t expect.
“This was a dream that I’ve been chasing since I was eight,” she says. “I got there at age 22, and for some reason it did not feel fulfilling. It didn’t feel like something that I waited all my life for, trained for and worked for.”
Junelle thought it perhaps was because she sought to win an individual medal, so she trained harder for the next Olympic cycle, the 2024 Paris Games.
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Rhasidat Adeleke of Ireland and Junelle Bromfield of Jamaica in action in the Women’s 400m Semi-Final 1 during the Athletics Competition at the Stade de France during the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Credit: Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty
“I made it individually, got my own lane, and everything,” she shares. “But even before going, I was like, ‘Yeah. I don’t think this was really my dream anymore.’ So, I don’t think it amounted to what I expected.”
Junelle has come to realize that there’s more to life than “just track and field,” the sport that she’s known since she was a kid. It consumed all aspects of her being, including time spent with friends and loved ones.
“I’ve been living in dorms since I was like, 11 years old,” she says. “Then I started having nieces and nephews, and you miss out on all them going to school, learning to walk and everything. You come back, but you don’t feel like an aunt... just the girl on the phone.”
When Junelle was training for the Olympics in 2021, her mom was diagnosed with cancer and passed away that year, she shares. “And all the time that I could spend with her was only on the weekends because I had to be commuting for like two and a half hours.”
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Junelle Lyles and “WAG World” host Skyler Caruso on set at PEOPEL Inc. Studios.
Credit: Astrid Stawiarz
“I took buses to the hospital,” she says, explaining that she couldn’t drive. “It would only be like an hour visit because they don’t give long visits in Jamaica. You look at all of that, and you’re like, ‘It’s taking so much.’ And then you get to the big moments and it’s not what you expected.”
Junelle announced her official retirement from competitive track and field on WAG World, and shared her newfound goals that she’s discovered since stepping away from the sport after competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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Junelle Lyles competes in the women’s 4x400m relay heats during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Credit: ANTONIN THUILLIER/AFP via Getty
“My biggest passion right now is creating something that nobody has done before, like this podcast,” she says of the PEOPLE show. “I’m like, ‘Okay, this is new, this is different.’ I want to do something like that. That’s my passion. I find it very interesting to bring something new to life.”
Now, the track star is chasing something new — but this time, it doesn’t involve the Olympics or medals. She makes clear, “It has nothing to do with running.”
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