Athing Mu DID NOT want to be at this meet

Mu was 5th in 2:00.29.

Wiley 2nd in 1:58.71

Dorcus Ewoi wins in 1:58.19

Yes. Before the start I said she looks miserable. Not sure if she’s still pissed about the trials. But once the race started it looked like she was just miserable

Looked like she mailed it in, i was expecting her to run a great race so she could show she's the fastest.

Whoever wins in Paris will be very grateful that Mu chose to run here tonight.

She's probably either racing to meet contractual obligations, staying in Nike's good graces to avoid some reduction clauses, or trying to run some fast times and improve her negotiating position for contract talks this winter. (Or some combination of the above)

Either way, it's stressful and not the situation she wanted to be in right now. Can't blame her for not being in high spirits.

Whoever wins in Paris doesn't give a crap about where Mu races after the US final.

At least she has her modeling career

Grumpy and sad? Athing needs to start wearing shades to block out you voyeuristic freaks.

What does she have to be mad about? She has an American record, Olympic Gold, and World Championship Gold. She has an EXTREMELY lucrative contract getting paid hundreds of thousands per year just to run.

Yeah she didn't make the Olympic team because she tripped herself, but it's clear she wasn't fit enough to make the team anyway. She's mad because she didn't train hard enough?

Any stress she has now is 100% her own doing. Even Syd raced a lot this year but Mu wouldn't show up to any meets.

They'll not be losing a lot of sleep over it, no. But people constantly brining up Mu and what might have happened would still be annoying.

But after this race that's not really going to be much of a talking point any more.

I think he meant that before this race people might say the person only won because Mu fell and didn't qualify.

Now we see Mu is in bad shape and would not have been a factor even if she made it.

Who ever wins the Olympics this year is the TRUE CHAMPION and deserves it for being the best in the world.

Mu wasn't even 4th best at this B level meet.

Also, Kersey appears to have injured her in practice this past spring.

It looks like it might have been an extremely minor hamstring tweak that they exaggerated to use as an exams for the entire season.

Hard to say it's Kersee's fault with Athing is clearly not working hard. It was probably a workout they've done a million times, but Mu is just not ready and is probably not doing the extra recovery work to stay healthy.

Kersee stinks but this lays 100% on Mu. She went from an American record last year (with Kersee) to being HORRIBLE this year.

Expectations matter. Going into this season, Mu expected to be be one of the faces of the Paris Games, getting a ton of glowing media attention and lucrative sponsorship opportunities thanks to gold medals in the 800 and maybe 400.

Now she's running 2 flat in front of a couple hundred people in Gainesville, she's gonna take a significant paycut on her next Nike deal, and she's no longer the golden child. Yeah big picture most athletes would trade places with her in a heartbeat, but it's still a pretty crushing year by the standards she set for herself.

A waste of talent, she absolutely has to leave the Curse Sea group.

If that's what Mu was expecting, then she's batsh*t crazy because she didn't train hard this year. If she wants the attention and money and gold medals then you need to work hard and actually show up to races.

She has nobody to blame but herself.

It is really hard to feel bad for or even really like Mu.

She hardly races, so fans get frustrated. She is not very social or likeable in interviews. She is hard to even get to know. She doesn’t engage with fans or the track community at all. She seems and is way more interested in her modeling career.. overall, she makes herself the villain and people don’t wanna cheer or root for her.. but she has done it herself.

^This. She’s gone from Sydney-like fame to irrelevancy in a couple of years. If she doesn’t want to use the gift she was given, then she will end up pouting at more B level meets in the future. You sort of reap what you sow.