I'm known for being an American record holder
and a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Athing Mu, you are a thing of beauty!
I don't know how I'm going to hold up to an Olympic athlete.
Nice to meet you.
-This is your world. -Yeah, it is.
Being in her environment was definitely very different.
Athing picked up the dance moves great!
She was super good.
I was a little bit nervous about the running.
You know, I didn't want to go out there
and look like a total fool.
I'm not ready for this.
Tinashe's coming.
What do you think about this?
I think it will be fun.
She'll get a little taste of what it's like
to be a professional athlete.
They've been telling me that she's pretty, pretty athletic.
So you know, she does a lot of kickboxing
and she might show you something.
-Yeah, she might. -She'll give you something.
'Cause all I know how to do is run.
I'm ready.
My name's Athing Mu.
I'm known for being an American record holder
and a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Athing Mu is an Olympic champion!
That's the American record by the 19-year-old.
Athing Mu is going to deliver gold for Team USA.
And there is the celebration at home.
She's certainly made her mama and the entire country proud.
My whole entire family ran track and field,
so we kind of all ran around the same coach.
Let's go Athing!
Since then, I kind of just walked right into it
just because of my family having past experiences.
And since then I've just been running.
I'm excited to meet Athing.
I've heard she's absolutely incredible.
I've never really done any track and field.
I've definitely not ran anything.
So I'm a little nervous. Let's see what happens.
I'm Tinashe.
I'm a singer-songwriter, dancer, performer, artist.
Performing is one of my favorite parts
about being an artist.
I think there's something so special
about being in the moment and feeling the music,
being able to express it, and translate it to an audience.
There's nothing like that.
Oh! There she is!
I'm not ready for this.
-Hey! -Hey Tinashe, how are you?
-Nice to meet you! -Yes, you as well.
-How are you? -I am good. You look good.
Thank you.
I'm ready to run.
I think I, I got my workout clothes on.
-I'm ready to go. -Yes you do, you look amazing.
Thank you.
I thought that I was, you know, ready for a little workout.
I don't think I knew how much of a workout
I was going to be doing today.
So, you know, I have my sneakers on.
I had my sweatpants.
Just going to do some 100s. Like eight 100s.
Eight hundred though, that's super far.
-Yeah. -Is that like two times
around this entire track?
It is.
I probably would have made, like a hairstyle
that was a little bit more conducive,
to like air flow
I would give her
a B minus for the attire for the workout,
but definitely an A for effort
and how cute she was.
So you won a gold medal in this?
-Yeah, I did. -That is so crazy.
I think it's crazy too.
Have you always wanted a gold medal?
Has that always been a goal for you?
Definitely, I think, especially in high school,
because I'd been watching Rio 2016.
That was the first-ever Olympics I ever watched.
And I just saw the athletes,
and most of them were athletes that I knew,
so I was like, "Ooh! I want to do that!
I definitely see myself there."
But I think this past year especially
was when I was really like, "I can actually do it."
Like mentally putting myself there.
I kind of put my dreams out there,
and then I work towards it.
Athing Mu, the 19-year-old,
is going to Tokyo as she demolishes this field.
That is the second-fastest ever ran by an American.
I didn't just go just to compete at the Olympics,
I wanted to create history.
How will Athing Mu run in this? She is ready to win gold.
United States has not won this event
since 1968.
Athing Mu, one lap to go.
She looks very comfortable.
Athing Mu, from Trenton, New Jersey,
is an Olympic champion!
She's shrugged off youth and inexperience
and delivered a virtuoso performance.
-It's still sinking in. -Yeah.
I think when I watch my races over and over,
I'm like, "Oh, wow, that actually happened?
Wow, I did that."
Athing Mu is going to deliver gold for Team USA!
Athing Mu leaves her first Olympics with two gold medals.
So do you, like run, ever?
No.
Honestly, no.
I never ran. I never ran in school.
I've never done any kind of track.
I used to like, race my little brothers.
-Yeah. -So, you know, "running."
But I've definitely never been trained in it.
So I'm sure you have a lot of tips for me.
Yeah, so this is your first time, a real workout.
This is my first time.
I would, like I don't know if you ever heard it,
but track, I would say it's definitely 90 percent mental,
-ten percent physical. -Wow.
So you definitely have to make sure
your mindset is definitely there.
Like how do you get prepped for dancing?
For the shows? Music is similar in a way,
like a lot of times for me, it feels like I'm always
in a competition with myself, like, "OK, how can I make
this performance better than the last performance?"
Or how can I be totally in the moment while I'm here
and not be thinking about other things?
Or you know, just life,
like letting that kind of get in my head
before going on stage.
Because when you're on stage,
that adrenaline that comes in, you know, it just kicks in.
You're in a whole 'nother body on a whole 'nother level.
So I think it's important to make sure that your muscles
are in the same place that your mind is at.
Are you feeling stretched enough?
Yeah, I feel good.
-Let's run! -Let's get some drills.
One step at a time.
This is your world.
Yeah, it is.
So we're going to do some drills.
I do a lot of dance, a lot of movement
throughout my shows, and my performances.
But, you know, it's a little bit different
than getting on a track, so yeah, we'll see what happens.
We don't do too much.
We usually do all the same things.
-We just do some high knees. -All right.
-Ready? -Okay.
-No, you're good. -I left her in the dust!
-No, just kidding. -It's too fast.
-Wow! -Okay. I'm trying, I'm trying.
Skips, a little bit of squats.
-Three. -Four.
Five.
Karaoke, if you've ever done it.
-What's that? -And okay.
I've done karaoke, like singing karaoke.
Oh, no.
She never heard of karaoke.
Also, she thought it was singing,
so that was pretty funny.
Something tells me this is not the same
-kind of karaoke. -It's not, it's not.
Just like, where you just cross your legs like this.
I feel like in dance,
we'd call that like a grapevine.
Or something like that, you know?
We did something called karaoke,
which, you know, I have a lot of experience
in singing karaoke, but did not have experience
doing whatever we were doing on the field.
Practically a master.
Boobs are falling out.
Still don't know why it was called karaoke,
but yeah, we did some of those.
So you say you usually do a lot of training in Texas?
-Yeah. -But you're not from Texas,
or your parents aren't from, are they immigrants?
They're South Sudanese, my whole entire family is.
-Oh wow, okay. -I was like the first
child to be born here.
-So yeah. -My dad's from Zimbabwe.
I think I read about that also.
That's, that's cool.
To be able to grow up with like that cultural influence,
I think that gave me a lot of,
introduction to music,
because there's a lot of musicality in that culture.
Okay, so speaking about cultural background,
your name's Tinashe.
So where'd that come from?
It's Shona, from Zimbabwe.
-It means "God is with us." -Okay.
So, yeah, I was given that name
by my grandmother, so it's kind of cool
to be able to have that name and, you know, do what I do.
-What about your name? -It's South Sudanese culture,
definitely a story for my mom to tell,
but it has something to do with, like, the cows
that we have back at home and just like colors
and being colorful and bright.
So, yeah, that's kind of where my mom heard that from.
Her parents being from Africa,
my dad's from Africa.
So we had a lot of things in common, I think,
while still coming from these two separate worlds.
It was really cool to see that overlap there.
It's just cool to see someone else,
even though we're not in the same sport,
we're not in the same industry.
It's just nice to see someone else's story
kind of be told in almost a similar way,
just with the different backgrounds and stories.
Now we're going to actually get into the workout.
-Okay. -That was just the warm-up.
Now we'll just do some,
-okay, deep breaths. -All right. All right.
I was so wheezy.
I was a little bit nervous about the running,
only because I didn't know what to expect.
You know, I didn't want to go out there
and look like a total fool.
-Ready? -Are we racing?
-Yeah. -This seems hard.
-Yeah. -All right.
Set... Go!