In the second year of their high-profile coaching partnership, Bobby Kersee has seen progress from 800-meter star Athing Mu.
As for seeing her compete for the first time since September, that will take more time, however.
Mu, 21, will not run in the star-studded Prefontaine Classic 800 meters on May 25, because of lingering soreness in her left hamstring. Kersee told Runner’s World it was not worth the risk to race on it.
Even without Mu, the race could offer an early Olympic preview, as it includes six of the eight women from last year’s world championships final, including gold medalist Mary Moraa and silver medalist Keely Hodgkinson.
It marks the third time that concerns over Mu’s hamstring have pushed back her 2024 season opener. She was initially scheduled to open at the Oxy Invitational in early May in Los Angeles, then the Los Angeles Grand Prix on May 18, but she withdrew from each out of precaution.
Kersee said all decisions regarding whether to compete are made combining input from Mu and himself, and that the highest priority is ensuring she will be ready for the first race of 800-meter qualifying at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials on June 21. Mu’s training could return to normal as soon as next week, he said.
“She’s a veteran, if she’s healthy, she can make the team,” Kersee said. “And so, if I injure her before, I’m gonna be called a fool; if I don’t race her before, I’m gonna 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 gonna do.”
Like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, another Kersee athlete, Mu has the talent to compete in multiple individual events at a global championship. But in 2024 Kersee confirmed both will be focusing on the events in which they both won gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics and at the 2022 world championships in Oregon—the 400-meter hurdles for McLaughlin-Levrone and the 800 for Mu.
Precaution will also rule for another of Kersee’s athletes, Kendra Harrison, who is now out of Saturday’s Prefontaine Classic 100-meter hurdles. Kersee said Harrison, the Tokyo Olympic silver medalist, developed a tight back after traveling to compete in last week’s Atlanta City Games. Despite that, Harrison beat world record-holder Tobi Amusan of Nigeria, 12.67 to 12.73, en route to a win in Atlanta.
“She’s ready to go and that’s what I’m telling her,” Kersee said. “Right now, unless I know she’s 100 percent healthy ... athletes are taking a high risk right now for minimum gain. If you’re going to take a high risk, there’s only two races left in this year where you got to take a high risk for maximum gain and that’s our Olympic Trials and our Olympic Games. Everything else, you can’t take the risk if you’re not sure about what to gain and vice versa. And so I just think that, you know, in this case, well in all cases, that’s what I’m looking at as a coach: What’s the risk-reward situation, based on where we stand right now?
“Like Sydney last year, based on her career I mean, I could probably try to see if we could struggle through the world championship, but do I break down one of our world’s best athletes trying to sneak out one more medal and then subject her to more injury and don’t have anything this Olympic year, versus do I rest her? I think I’ve shown a little bit so far that maybe the rest did not hurt her and now she’s starting to compete again.”
Mu is coming off a season she described to Runner’s World this month as “pretty tough.” She joined Kersee's training group in Los Angeles in the fall of 2022 and contested the 1500 meters at the U.S. championships, nearly winning, because she had a guaranteed bye into the 800-meter field at the world championships.
Mu spent July mulling whether to compete in Budapest at all, and she told reporters after ultimately earning a bronze medal that she had struggled to regain the excitement that had fueled previous seasons. It made her rebound the next month, when she won the Diamond League final in Eugene in an American record 1:54.97—making her the eighth-fastest performer all-time—all the more notable.
Kersee said the breakthrough at the Diamond League final followed weeks of productive practices that helped the coach and athlete understand one another: how he wanted to coach, and how she wanted to be coached.
“I don’t think either one of us doubted one another, I just think it’s really just us getting on the same page and just mainly knowing how to communicate with one another,” he said. “So I think we both knew that it was there. I didn’t, honestly, I did not know how to coach her as [I do] now. The period between the world championship and the Prefontaine helped me be able to coach her more, and I think she understood it and took it and then went up there and executed. And then I think that’s where we kind of got on the same page.”
Kersee likened Mu to a race car driver. She knows how to drive, but he’s training her for a particular type of racing. She now understands, he said, “If I’m going to drive it differently, I need to tell him, because he’s looking for me to drive a certain way.
“I just think that that’s where we start to agree how I’m setting it up and how she’s supposed to be executing it,” he said.
McLaughlin-Levrone did not defend her 400-meter hurdles world title last summer nor enter the world championships in the 400, the event she focused on in 2023, because of a lingering knee issue. She will run what she called last week her “bread-and-butter” event, the 400 hurdles, at the U.S. Olympic Trials, and is using scheduled races at the Edwin Moses Legends Meet on May 31 in Atlanta, where she will hurdle, and New York Adidas Grand Prix on June 9, where she is expected to run an open 400, to fine-tune her speed and technique, Kersee said.
Though the 200 isn’t a focus for McLaughlin-Levrone, and though she had hoped to dip under 22 seconds, her victory in 22.07 seconds last week showcased the improvement of her stride mechanics as a shorter-distance sprinter, Kersee said.
“She’s done an excellent job, I think as shown at the LA Grand Prix meet,” he said.
Kersee believes the Olympic schedule makes it possible for McLaughlin-Levrone to potentially win four gold medals in Paris, including three relays—the mixed 4x400, the women’s 4x400 and the 4x100.
Kersee also expects Mu, who won a gold medal in Tokyo on the 4x400-meter relay, to be part of the 4x400-meter relay pool in Paris as well. The 800-meter final is August 5, five days before the long relay final.
“Her speed would be at the world-class level,” he said, “so I think that she’s capable.”
Andrew Greif is a Los Angeles-based reporter whose coverage of track and field has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Oregonian and other publications since 2007.