Mu and Kessler: Young blood runs hot as Team USA’s athletics future unfolds
Athing Mu, 19 years of age, and Hobbs Kessler, just 18, carry the hopes of USA athletics well into the future - and both made their pro debuts with first-place finishes in their Thursday heats at the U.S. Track and Field Trials in Oregon.
Athletics
We were given glimpses into Team USA’s Track and Field future on Thursday.
Hobbs Kessler, just 18 and still a high school student, finished first in his first-round 1500m heat at the U.S. Team Trials in Eugene, Oregon, while Athing Mu – a superstar in the making at 19 – also topped her race in women’s 800m qualifying.
And though they both look very much to the manner born, and ready to handle the attention and sharp glare of the spotlight, it’s worth noting that these were the first professional races for both athletes.
"I guess I take everything that people say lightly. I don't let it get to my head or anything,” Mu [pronounced Mo] said after being asked how it felt to be dubbed the next track superstar on national television. “I mean, it's pretty awesome. But it's just something I've always kind of wanted to be... I'm just coming out here doing my thing, running the races, just having fun. You know, people can think what they want.”
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Everyone seems to have an opinion about this tall, elegant middle-distance runner, a freshman at Texas A&M with a limitless ceiling for future success.
She announced herself at age 16 by breaking the American indoor 600m record.
Mu headed for the stratosphere
“She’s on another level,” Donavan Brazier, the American record-holder at 800 meters, recently said about Mu.
She looked poised and cruised to her win on Thursday with a time of 2:00.69. And she looked like she had another few gears she could have shifted into if needed. In fact, the only time she looked out of her depth was before the race started, when she took up her place in the wrong lane – before being pointed in the right direction.
“You know what? Something always happens,” she said, covering her face when asked about it and unable to control her laughter over the misstep, which, somehow, only added to her charm. “I’m so upset they got that on camera!”
Mu seems to be handling the heavy g-forces of her rocket ship to athletics superstardom as well as anyone could expect. Her time in the 800m heat was enough to land her in fourth place in the 16-woman field for Friday’s semi-final, where she might just get the chance to push up into those suspected extra gears.
“I just wanted to stay in the top, if not be the leader than be the second person in,” said Mu, with family roots in South Sudan and who grew up the youngest of seven siblings in Trenton, New Jersey. "And I think that's what I did kind of the whole time.”
As for the two races between now and confirming a possible spot on her first Team USA, Mu has only one thing on her mind. “I’m not thinking about a time,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m planning on just finishing in the top three and making the Olympic team.”
Sweet 18 for prodigy Kessler
Mu wasn’t the youngest heat winner on Thursday night. That distinction fell to Kessler, just 18 years of age, and still a high school student at Ann Arbor Skyline in his home state of Michigan.
His tender years didn’t keep him from posting a 3:45.63 time in his 1500m first-round heat and booking a place (20th overall) in the 24-man field for Friday’s semis.
“I felt in control the last 100 meters, as soon as we started kicking and I kind of felt everyone else strain. I knew I was going to make it,” said Hobbs, fidgety in the press conferences - befitting his age.
“But I still don't have very much experience with these races. I didn't know how it was going to play out, so I was just kind of staying in position. But at one hundred to go, I knew I had it. But before that. Yeah, like I didn't know how it's going to work.”
Hobbs is thrilled to be at his first trials and he's soaking it all in, clearly being careful not to say the wrong thing or appear cocky.
_“_I think it’s a disadvantage that I’m less physically mature and less experienced," he insisted. "But I'm out here just having a good time and people are here thinking this is the most important race of their life. So I'm just out here going after it. It's a little bit more fun, I would say.”
When asked if it’s sunk in yet that this is his career now, at age 18, he shifted in his chair. “It hasn't, and I don't know how long it will take, but it's pretty amazing and I'm very, very grateful.”
There’s a still a lot of running to go before Mu and Kessler can stamp their tickets to Tokyo. But you can bank on the future being bright for both of these fresh-faced new American pros with the world at their feet.