Bobby Kursi is unquestionably one of the greatest coaches in track and field history, from Florentinburg to Jockey-Joyne Kursi, to Gail Devers and Joanna Hayes, to Allison Felix and Sidney McLaughlin. Over his 40 plus years of coaching, his athletes have won a plethora of Olympic and World Championship golds, as well as broken a plethora of American and world records. It was recently announced that 800-meter Olympic and World Champion of Thing Mo, as well as 2022 World Championship qualifier Brandon Miller, both of whom attended and trained at Texas A&M, would be moving to California to now train with Bobby Kursi and his group. Shortly after that, Kendra Harrison, who was training under coach Ejek Floreal in Austin, Texas, already an Olympic and World Championship medalist and formal world record holder, announced that she would also be moving to Bobby Kursi's group as well. In addition, though not specifically announced, it's likely that Jenna Prandini, who also trained with Kendra Harrison under Ejek Floreal, would be moving there as well. This comes on the heels of Allison Felix, one of the most accomplished athletes in the history of the sport, retired at the end of the 2022 season, after spending her entire 18 year professional career training with Kursi. With these recent moves, everyone in the track and field world is questioning, was this a good move for Thing Mo? Will she be focusing more on the 400? Can Kursi even coach 800-meter runners? Well, four Thing Mo, let's get one thing out the way. Bobby Kursi will be fine coaching her as an 800-meter runner. Though the 800 meters is of course seen as more of a distance than a sprint, there was tons of overlap and Mo has shown herself to be more of a 400-800 type than an 815 type. In addition, Kursi has coached his wife Jackie Jornor Kursi, arguably the greatest woman's athlete in the history of the sport, considering her haptathlon world record and individual performances. And as we know, she has had to run the 800 in her haptathons. Now, that is not the same thing as being an 800-meter runner, but we can't act like Bobby Kursi is coming in completely blind here. I think a Thing Mo will continue to not only win, but likely get more dominant in the 800 meters. Note that in 2022, her first year as a professional, she had some close call races with Ajay Wilson at the USA Championships and Kili Hotskinson at the World Championships. She also didn't improve on her personal best of 155.04. I don't think 2022 was a down year though. It was simply a transition for her. But now in her second full year as a pro, and under a new coach with a new group, I think we'll see her not only defend her world championship gold, but also improve her personal best down into the 154 range. Now the 800-meter world record is way out there, so we'll say that conversation for another time. In terms of the 400, I'm not exactly sure if Mo will necessarily focus more there. It's possible considering she'll now be training with Sidney McLachlan, who has said she plans to run more 400s. But note that McLachlan has completely dominated and took command of her event. No one is currently touching McLachlan in the 400-meter hurdles. While Mo on the other hand, as noted earlier, had a bit of competition in 2022. So, I think we'll see her run a few more 400s, possibly even run it at USA's considering she has a world championship wild card, but I'm not sure we'll see her consistently running it or going for a 4800 double, at least 920-23. But I would love to be wrong in this case. Along with Mo, the moves of Harrison and Printini are also very intriguing as well. Coach Ejik Florial is one of the most renowned coaches in the sport. Originally head coach at Stanford, then moved to Kentucky in 2012, and more recently Texas in 2018, where he currently serves as the head coach. Along the way, he had built up a group that included some elite athletes, names like Corey Carter, Jasmine Khmatcho Quinn, Omar McLeod, Tiana Daniels, among others. He even coached Sidney McLachlan during her one year in the NCAA while at Kentucky. In the past few years, most notably when moving to Texas, we have seen his group begin to downsize. McLaughlin and Khmatcho Quinn left after 2018, then 2017 World Champion Corey Carter retired from the sport early in 2022. Antiana Daniels, 2021 Olympic silver medalist, moved from Texas to Florida to train with Dennis Mitchell's star athletics group towards the end of 2022. And now Harrison and Printini will be moving to Los Angeles. What's notable is the growth and success Harrison and Printini have had under coach flow. And despite both being 30 years old, still have been able to run quality times in the hurdles and sprints respectively this past year. For Harrison and the 100-meter hurdles, I suspect we'll see her remain consistent and continue to hit fast times as she did in 2022. She was consistently in the 12.3 to 12.4 range all year and ran 12.27 seconds in the World Championship semifinals, her third fastest time ever, showing she is still in range of her personal best, the former world record of 12.20 seconds. Printini has also been very strong the last few years in the 200, of course making it to the Tokyo Olympics, running 21.89 seconds at the US Olympic trials and then running 22.01 at USA's in 2022, her third fastest time ever, qualifying her for the World Championships. Though Printini had never made a global championship final and the 200 meters has been getting even more crowded in terms of quality women at the top, I think she will likely be able to hit sub-22 again, which puts her in the conversation of making the US team and potentially being in the final. So despite losing Alston Felix as a training partner, Sydney McLaughlin will be gaining a new group of teammates in Moe, Harrison, Printini and of course Miller. They will all be pushing each other day in and day out and in 2023 and beyond, I think Kursi will almost certainly be adding a few more global medals to his career accolades as a coach. So go in the comments below and let me know what you think of these recent moves to Bobby Kursi's training group. Make sure you like the video, subscribe to the channel, and we'll be back again next time. Thanks for watching. you