"Bobby was refusing to let me stay comfortable"- When Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone reflected on her coach's tactics to push her towards success

By Soumik Bhattacharya

Modified Mar 31, 2025 19:44 GMT

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American track and field athlete Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone once opened up about the way her coach, Bobby Kersee, let her practice several disciplines to improve her skills. Kersee has been the coach of several former Olympic medalists, including her spouse, Jackie-Joyneer Kersee.

Kersee started coaching McLaughlin-Levrone in 2020 and has helped her in several possible ways. Notably, one of the major learnings for McLaughlin-Levrone was after the 2021 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, where she finished last in the 60m hurdles event after clocking a run time of 8.56 seconds.

In her book, titled Far Beyond Gold: Running from Fear to Faith, McLaughlin-Levrone shared that her coach, Bobby Kersee, didn't let her be comfortable during training and let her practice the 100m hurdles and 60m hurdles after this defeat.

McLaughlin-Levrone added that Kersee used these techniques to get her habituated with the long hurdles and it worked as he improved her run times. She said:

"By insisting I run shorter races, Bobby was refusing to let me be comfortable. He knew the 100- or 60-meter hurdles forced me to confront my problem with the hurdles. Because the shorter distances had taller hurdles, I had to clean up my technique in order to clear them.

"There was no room for laziness. I couldn’t rely on my foot speed to cover when I didn’t execute correctly. Though my times started getting better as the season progressed—I hadn’t finished dead last again after the debacle in New Jersey."

In the same year (2021), Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone improved her performance a lot. She went on to win the 400m hurdles event at the US Olympic Track and Field trials (51.90 seconds) and eventually the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (51.46 seconds).

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Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone heaps praise on her coach Bobby Kersee

McLaughlin-Levrone during the 400m hurdles event at the 2022 USATF Outdoor Championships (Image via: Getty Images)

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone recently praised her coach, Bobby Kersee, for his sheer experience in the discipline. In a recent conversation during the Jinger & Jeremy Vuolo podcast, the 400m hurdles Olympic champion termed Kersee as a "genius" for the way he has helped his athletes in major events such as the Olympics.

She also said Kersee told her that the Almighty made her the way she is for some reason. She said (45:04 onwards):

"Bobby (Kersee) is just a genius, Bobby's been in the sport for 40 something years, he's been to 12 Olympics, he's got at least one gold medal in all of those Olympics... He also taught me that God made me the way I am for a reason."

During the conversation, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone also remarked that her coach advised her to train and approach her race as her body wants.