Athing Mu on Keely Hodgkinson 800m rivalry: ‘We’re always gonna be here, we’re changing the game’

Athing Mu and Keely Hodgkinson have shared words of encouragement in waiting rooms before, but all was quiet in the bowels of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium before the women’s 800m final last summer. Mu needed to “lock in” and focus on how she would approach the biggest race of her life. The American 19-year-old went out and controlled the final from start to finish to win Olympic gold, as Hodgkinson gave chase down the home straight to earn silver.

Afterwards the tension faded away and the teenage duo hugged and heralded a new era of middle-distance running. “Maybe there was a little rivalry after Keely ran the Under-20 indoor record,” admitted Mu in a joint-interview as she reflected on Hodgkinson’s explosion on to the scene a few months earlier. “I was like: ‘Hmm, I need that!’”

Hodgkinson’s U20 mark lasted only 28 days. “Yeah, you took my record!” the Briton jumped in, with an accusatory finger.

“I think we’re going to push each other,” replied Mu.

Twelve months on, the pair are preparing to meet again at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene. The interim has been far from straightforward for Mu, who was laid low with Covid in January and suffered another bout in May. Her competitive outings have been intermittent at best while Hodgkinson has suffered her own injury woes, and it means two of the hottest prospects in athletics have not faced each other all year, adding another layer of intrigue to their coming battle.

Mu believes they can only lift one another to greater heights over the coming years. “It’s super beneficial for both of us,” she tells The Independent. “I guess it’s a friendly rivalry. We definitely talk and communicate off the track. In the past we’ve seen, say for example, Caster [Semenya] and Francine [Niyonsaba], they were always going one and two. To have that now in a younger version for the 800 is super great. I think we’re definitely pushing each other, whether it be now, another Olympics, another World Championships, we’re always gonna be here, we’re both super young. I’m hopeful for that and hopeful for the 800 too – us changing the game.”

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It is a rivalry that may come to define their careers, one Mu has had the upperhand in so far – though given she has won all of her past 14 races over 800m, Mu has the upperhand in every rivalry.

It is a remarkable streak by an athlete described as America’s greatest prodigy since Allyson Felix. Her career felt the benefit of Tokyo 2020’s delay, effectively gaining an extra Games which she admits she would not have won 12 months earlier. The 20-year-old Mu is already the second-fastest woman over 800m this century behind only Semenya, with perhaps four more Olympics in her legs, and as she prepares to go for her first world title it is not hard to imagine her eventually becoming one of America’s greatest athletes.

Mu has that rare combination of 400m speed and 1500m strength, making her the prototype 800m runner. Her fast finish means if she’s leading into the final bend, she’s already won. Mu’s personal best over 400 would have had her challenging in the Olympic final over that distance too and it is something we might see in the future. “I enjoy running the 400, whether it’s speed work, relay, it’s nice to get away from your main event,” she says. “I think in the future I would definitely like to run 400 just because who wants to run 800, like, 6,000 times? It’s a great event, I’m really good at it, but when it gets repetitive it gets boring, so I would love to do a 400 at some big championship.”

Is one kinder on the legs than the other? “The 400 is painful, but it’s not as painful as the 800! Nothing is as painful as 800.”

Mu began running aged six when she went down to the local track in her hometown Trenton, New Jersey with her older brothers (she is one of seven siblings). She would win races but never joined a club and her interest in athletics drifted until the summer of 2014 when she watched the Rio Olympics on TV. “I was like, ‘I want to be an Olympian, I want to be an Olympic gold medallist.’ Since that time, all throughout high school all I talked about was winning an Olympic gold medal and being a professional athlete.”

In Trenton she is not only a household name but an inspirational figure, an emblem of hope in her community. She may be young, but Mu already has plans to leave a legacy beyond medals and wants to offer the guidance to young people that she never had.

“When I was growing up as a young girl in Trenton, I definitely didn’t have a lot of people that I looked up to. One thing I definitely want to do for future young athletes and young girls period is be able to form this – I don’t want to say ‘foundation’ because I’m not sure if that’s what it’s going to be yet – but something where young people have the ability to connect to people they admire.

“I think when you have a little bit of guidance it will allow you to have a better understanding about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, versus just going with the flow like I did, because when you do that you tend to question why you’re doing it and that leads to being uninterested, which happened to me numerous times since I was young. I didn’t have a ton of confidence when I was younger, so if I had some guidance I’m sure I would have been flourishing as a young person.”

There is a humility about the affable Mu, and she wears her unique talent with understated ease. Where most athletes have their major medals and global titles sprawled across their social media bios, her Instagram strap contains an explanation of how to say her often mispronounced name (Ah-thing Moe – “It’s been getting messed up for so long I’m numb to it but I think the percentage of people getting it right has gone up a little bit since Tokyo”), a reference to being an Olympian, and a plug for the Instagram of her pug, Bentley, whose travails have garnered more than a thousand followers. “Well, I feel like writing ‘Olympic gold medallist champion’ is a little too much,” she laughs.

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She also displays the South Sudanese flag. Mu’s parents moved over to the States before she was born but the link burns strong and proud. Her family received thousands of messages from South Sudan when she won Olympic gold and she has received support from the South Sudanese-British former NBA star Luol Deng, as well as Adut Akech, a model and African icon whom Mu deeply admires.

It is through the prism of her heritage that Mu now sees her success, not as a personal achievement but as a way of giving back to her family. “Knowing what’s happening there in South Sudan and knowing the struggles that my parents had to go through just to come to America and raise all seven of us, and get me to this point, I think it’s something I tend to think of so I remember that I’m not doing this for myself.”

It is this motivation that will be in Mu’s mind when she takes to the track this week and renews her rivalry with Britain’s own 800m talent. Things have changed since Tokyo: now Mu is greeted by fans at every meet, and trying to shut out the noise and return her mind the serenity of near anonymity last year has become one of her key goals. Mu will be in her own little world before the final, getting locked in once more.

“Some people run timid, then there’s those athletes who run fearless and free just to go after it, and I think she’s definitely one of those competitors who goes out there and runs free,” Mu says of Hodgkinson. “If it’s a championship race like the Olympic Games, like she did in Tokyo, she’s gonna go after it.”