Masai Russell, center, used to get so nervous before races she could not eat. Now she's an Olympic gold medalist. (USA Track & Field Photo)
Kentucky track coach Lonnie Greene was extremely proud of how former UK team members did at the Paris Olympics but said the “finished product” everyone sees requires a lot of work.
“You’re looking at training for four years just to run for 12 seconds. So that’s a commitment,” he said about 100-meter hurdle Olympic gold medalist Masai Russell.
Even Russell, who also won the U.S. Olympic Trials, knows it is hard to comprehend what she did.
“It’s like I see the gold medal, but it’s like did I really do that,” Russell said. “I just tell coach Greene all the time like it was just like yesterday I was a freshman just listening to everything he said, like, ‘Yes, Coach.’ It’s just crazy because I’m living out my dreams, truly.”
Russell never quit believing in herself even when her times were not nearly as fast as she wanted earlier this year.
“I am not going to lie. I believed that (Olympic gold medalist) should be my goal. When you are preparing to win and get that outcome, it is not unbelievable to you,” she said. “The gold medal race is a very high pressure situation but I just told myself I had been running against these ladies all year and tried to make the meet not as big as it really was in my head.”
She admitted at the 2023 World Championships she let the name of the meet scare her.
“I was not going to allow the same thing to happen to me again,” she said. “The nerves are always going to be there but I just tried to do my job and focus on doing that. When it was over and posted that I won, I was so geeked up. I took off and screamed and went crazy when I saw I had won.”
Russell has learned to maintain a set routine on race day no matter how big the event is. She even writes down some thoughts she has on race day.
“I keep telling myself it is possible and I am able to do it,” she said. “Your mind tries to trick you into believing you can’t do something. I have learned to keep thinking I can do it. I tell myself not to get too nervous to where I can’t eat or am not able to do my makeup. My dad always told me everybody I was racing against put their pants on the same way as me and bleed the same way I bleed.
“But I really used to get so nervous that I could not eat. I would feel like I was going to throw up and be shaking in the (starting) blocks. You cannot perform if you let the nerves take over. Now I am anxious to run and have learned to actually allow the nervousness to enhance my performance and not take away from what I know I can do.”
Russell notes she was never a national champion until this year and never won a NCAA or AAU championship.
“I took the losses as lessons but at times I did wonder why I could not win. The beginning of this year was difficult for me on and off the track but I just had to do what I could with the cards I was dealt,” she said. “There was no indication early this year I would be the 100-meter gold medalist but I kept training and believing great things were going to happen and they did.”
