Why did Abby Steiner struggle in her first season as a pro?
Abby Steiner is one of the biggest names in track & field, and why wouldn’t she be? She was the American champion in the 200 meter dash in 2022, a World Championship finalist in that event, and a World Champion in the 4x400 meter relay. But honestly she is most well-known for everything she did while she was in college at Kentucky. Abby didn’t just win in college, she dominated! She broke the collegiate record in the 200 meter dash, both indoors and outdoors, while winning back to back NCAA championships. So in 2023 her first full year of competition as a pro, almost everyone expected her to take the next step and compete for a world title in her signature event. But normally your first full year as a pro in track and field almost always doesn’t go according to plan.
What happened to Abby Steiner?
At the World Championships Abby Steiner wasn’t there. She actually didn’t qualify to represent team USA. Although she wasn’t 100 percent throughout the 2023 season, there’s a legitimate reason why, her first season as a pro, likely took a toll on her physically. Abby Steiner is just one of many track stars to go pro after dominating at the NCAA level. Regardless of who you are, or how talented you might be, pro track is a whole different animal. The clock might work just the same as it did in college, but nothing else is the same, the moment you leave the track. Which is why most athletes fall off immediately thereafter. So the path forward for her runs through the fire, just the same as it has for every other young pro.
What happens to sprinters who turn pro?
When a star track athlete turns pro out of college, particularly when you are a sprinter, they almost always seem to have success right out of the gate. For Abby that meant winning the USA championship, beating all of the pros including Gabby Thomas and Sha’carri Richardson in the 200 meter dash. But during that same season she wasn’t the only college athlete to win in the sprints. Because the 100 meter dash champion for the women was Melissa Jefferson, formerly of Coastal Carolina University. Both of them were NCAA champions in the 2022 season and showed up to the USA meet just weeks after it all ended.
College runners show up and show out at the USA championships all the time. In 2022 the women’s 400 meter dash was also won by a college runner, Talitha Diggs of Florida. Micah Williams of Oregon barely missed out on making team USA in the 100 meter dash by 2 hundredths of a second. The 3 men who beat him swept the entire world in that event a month later. Even this past year in 2023, it happened again, because Courtney Lindsey made team USA in the men’s 200 meter dash. Beating out Fred Kerley to do it. But what all of those athletes have in common, is that they were all coming off of a college track season at the time. Abby Steiner was no longer coming off of a collegiate season throughout all of 2023. That is why her performances were likely going to change.
Believe it or not, college runners have a benefit when they compete at the USAs and later on at the World Championships. They run a whole bunch of races between the indoor and outdoor track seasons. And all of those races are in the NCAA, which means they are run on American soil. Even the teams that travel the most don’t have to fly on planes for most of the season, and jetlag is not a major concern for any athlete. The coach in me knows, that when you are training an athlete, the goal is to push them as hard as possible, while giving the body enough time to recover. If you are a good coach, it doesn’t matter how long the season is, I should be able to make you faster the longer the season goes, so long as your body doesn’t break under the stress. It’s why a sprinter can run a PR one week and tweak a hamstring the next, because that happened to me more than once in college.
Why is pro track and field so hard on sprinters?
College athletes like Abby Steiner show up to the USAs with a lot of races under their belts, and no international flights that they have had to sit through. But all of the pros who are competing at the USA championships and beyond have had a very different schedule leading up to the meet. They don’t have college training staffs, or college meal plans to fall back on. They have to make their own food, and drive to work in the morning like normal people, even if that work is on the track. Beyond that, they have to travel all the way around the country and halfway around the world just to be able to keep doing their jobs as pro track athletes. In 2022 Gabby Thomas competed in Bermuda, Great Britain, Italy, and Qatar, not to mention 3 separate American time zones before she ran at the USA championships. She didn’t even get anywhere near as many race attempts as Abby Steiner either with all that traveling. So it makes sense why Gabby Thomas was “banged up” by the time she even got on the starting line at the USA championships.
The funny thing is, nobody really cared either. Gabby was coming off of an Olympic medal winning performance in 2021, so she was supposed to win in 2022. She didn’t win, or run anything close to her best, and nobody cared. Because the moment she stepped on the line her reputation was up for grabs. Nobody wants to hear a story about why she wasn’t her best, even if injuries are a part of the narrative. Now Abby Steiner is in Gabby’s seat. She is the pro athlete who had to fly to Qatar, Italy, Bermuda, and France before making it to USAs. And she was “banged up” by the time she got there. She couldn’t run as fast as she’s really capable of. And nobody cares because when she gets on the line, that is her reputation on the line as well.
The Bottom Line
Abby Steiner is a professional who won more races in 2023 than she lost. All that matters is that the one race that she needed to run her best at, was the USA championships. Unfortunately that did not happen. But Gabby Thomas is back on top of her game again, as the silver medalist at the World Championships, and she’s actually faster now than Allyson Felix ever was. So just like her and all the other pros who are going to make it on the track, I expect Abby Steiner to adapt. Because she doesn’t really have a choice not to. She will have to learn how to run fast, and stay healthy, while competing in fewer races. After all that she will have to sleep in hotel beds across a whole bunch of time zones she never planned on visiting. My college coach Julio Piazza used to tell us that the great ones adjust. He wasn’t lying. So if Abby Steiner’s true greatness is ever going to truly reveal itself in time for the 2024 Olympics, a lot of adjustments will have to be made.
LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, RUN GOOD.
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