Mu, who had just raced to an Olympic gold medal and American record in the women’s 800 meters, was talking a mile a minute when she was asked what people watching her for the first time should know about her.
The 19-year-old from Trenton, N.J., paused and pondered.
“I’m very fun,” she said at last. “This isn’t the last time you’re going to see me run. This is just the beginning. There’s more.”
Mu then recalled a statement she made two years ago – when she was a precocious teenager already breaking records – and said it still holds true: “My time is now.”
“Six years from now, two years from now, it’s going to be my time,” Mu said. “I’m going to do whatever I can in my time, no matter what age I am … to be great.”
Mu also set an American record of 1 minute, 55.21 seconds, breaking Ajee Wilson’s four-year-old mark by four-tenths of a second.
“I’m accomplishing all these crazy things,” said Mu, who is a candidate for the 4 x 400-meter relay later this week. “Being an Olympic gold medalist, that’s insane. But I just feel like when I expect it or I know it’s possible, it’s not as shocking.”
Mu, whose first name is pronounced just the way it looks, but whose last name sounds like “Mo,” was born after her parents emigrated from Sudan. She is equally comfortable at 400 meters – in which she was NCAA champion as a Texas A&M freshman before turning pro this year – and at 800 meters.
Following her usual strategy of making a beeline for the lead and never relinquishing it, Mu won the first Team USA gold medal in the women’s 800 since Madeline Manning in 1968. Kim Gallagher won the silver medal in 1984 and the bronze in 1988.
“I don’t want to leave anything up to chance,” Mu said of getting out in front. “I don’t want to get into a race and not do what I can and get mixed in there and mess up my chances of reaching any of my goals.”
According to www.teamusa.org. Source of photo: internet
