In the second year of their high-profile coaching partnership, Bobby Kersee saw the progress of 800 meters star Athing Mu.
As for seeing her compete for the first time since September, however, that will take longer.
Mu, 21, will not participate in the classic 800 meters in Préfontaine on May 25 due to persistent pain in his left hamstring. Kersee said The world of runners it wasn’t worth the risk of running into it.
Even without Mu, the race could offer an Olympic taste, as it includes six of the eight women from last year’s world championship final, including gold medalist Mary Moraa and silver medalist Keely Hodgkinson .
This is the third time that concerns over Mu’s hamstring have pushed back her first match of the 2024 season. She was originally scheduled to start at the Oxy Invitational in early May in Los Angeles, then at the Los Angeles Grand Prix on May 18 , but she withdrew from everyone as a precaution.
Kersee said that all decisions about whether to compete are made by combining input from Mu and himself, and that the highest priority is to ensure she will be ready for the first qualifying race of the 800 meters at the US Olympic Track and Field Trials on June 21. training could return to normal as early as next week, he said.
“She’s a veteran, if she’s healthy she can be a part of the team,” Kersee said. “And so, if I hurt her first, I’ll be called a fool; If I don’t run it first, I’m going to get (criticism). So I have to do the math that’s going to put her on the team, and so whatever that math is between now and the 21st, that’s what I’m going to do.
Like fellow Kersee athlete Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Mu has the talent to compete in multiple individual events at a world championship. But in 2024, Kersee confirmed both will focus on the events in which they both won gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 world championships in Oregon: the 400 meter hurdles for McLaughlin -Levrone and the 800 for Mu.
Caution will also be required for another Kersee athlete, Kendra Harrison, who is now absent from Saturday’s Prefontaine Classic 100-meter hurdles. Kersee said Harrison, a silver medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, developed a tight back after traveling to compete in the Atlanta City Games last week. Despite this, Harrison beat world record holder Tobi Amusan of Nigeria, 12.67 to 12.73, en route to a victory in Atlanta.
“She’s ready to go and that’s what I tell her,” Kersee said. “Right now, unless I know she’s 100 percent healthy… athletes right now are taking high risk for minimal gain. If you want to take a high risk, there are only two races left this year where you have to take a high risk for maximum gain and those are our Olympic Trials and our Olympics. For the rest, you cannot take risks if you are not sure of what you will gain and vice versa. And so I just think that, you know, in this case, well in all cases, that’s what I look at as a coach: What’s the risk-reward situation, based on where we’re at right now?
“Like Sydney last year, based on her career, I mean I could probably try to see if we could fight all the way to the world championship, but would I break one of the best athletes in our world trying to win one more medal and then subjecting her to more injuries and I have nothing this Olympic year, do I rest her I think I’ve shown a little bit so far that? maybe the rest didn’t hurt her and now she’s starting to compete again.
Mu just finished a season in which she described The world of runners this month like “quite difficult.” She joined Kersee’s training group in Los Angeles in the fall of 2022 and competed in the 1,500 meters at the US championships, almost winning, as she had a guaranteed bye for the 800 meters at the world championships.
Mu spent July thinking whether to compete in Budapest, and she told reporters after finally winning a bronze medal that she had struggled to regain the enthusiasm that had fueled previous seasons. This allowed her to bounce back the following month, when she won the Diamond League final in Eugene in an American record time of 1:54.97, making her the eighth fastest performance of all time, d ‘all the more remarkable.
Kersee said the breakthrough in the Diamond League final followed weeks of productive practices that helped coach and athlete understand each other: how he wanted to coach and how she wanted to be coached.
“I don’t think either of us doubted each other, I just think it’s just that we’re on the same page and mostly know how to communicate with each other. others,” he said. “So I think we both knew it was there. Honestly, I didn’t know how to coach her like I know now. The period between the World Championship and the Prefontaine helped me be able to train her more, and I think she understood that and took it and then went out there and executed. And then I think that’s where we’re kind of on the same page.
Kersee compared Mu to a race car driver. She knows how to drive, but he trains her for a particular type of racing. She understands now, he said: “If I want to drive differently, I have to tell him, because he wants me to drive a certain way.
“I just think that’s where we start to agree on how I run it and how she’s supposed to run it,” he said.
McLaughlin-Levrone did not defend her world title in the 400 meters hurdles last summer or compete in the world championships in the 400, the event she is focused on in 2023, due to an ongoing knee problem . She will run what she last week called her “bread and butter” event, the 400 hurdles, at the U.S. Olympic Trials, and uses scheduled races at the Edwin Moses Legends Meet on May 31 in Atlanta, where she will run hurdles, and the Adidas New York Grand Prix on June 9, where she is expected to run an open 400, to refine her speed and technique, Kersee said.
Although the 200m is not a priority for McLaughlin-Levrone, and although she had hoped to go under 22 seconds, her victory in 22.07 seconds last week demonstrated the improvement in her stride mechanics as a short-distance sprinter, Kersee said.
“She did a great job, I think, as the Los Angeles Grand Prix showed,” he said.
Kersee believes the Olympic schedule allows McLaughlin-Levrone to potentially win four gold medals in Paris, including three relays: the mixed 4×400, the women’s 4×400 and the 4×100.
Kersee also expects Mu, who won a gold medal in Tokyo in the 4×400-meter relay, to also be in the 4×400-meter relay pool in Paris. The 800-meter final will take place on August 5, five days before the long relay final.
“Her speed would be at world-class level,” he said, “so I think she’s capable of it.”
Andrew Greif is a Los Angeles-based journalist whose coverage of athletics has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Oregonian and other publications since 2007.
