Imagine beating Jacious Sears for the win. Imagine winning the women’s 60-meter title at the 2025 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships. Just imagine being a World Athletics Relays winner, a NACAC champion, and a silver medalist. Imagine doing all that, being a part of some of the best track and field athletes in the country, and yet the sport does not come naturally to you. You get forced into it. If you haven’t guessed yet, that’s what happened to Celera Barnes. Who pushed the 26-year-old into the sport and why?
In the recent episode of USA track and field’s podcast, Journey to Gold Zone, Celera Barnes made an interesting revelation, “I started track when I was about 11 years old, just because my stepdad was like, she needs to do more boy sports.” So if we’re to thank someone for Barnes being a track athlete, it has to be her stepfather who just wanted his stepdaughter to get tougher.
She further said, “So I did that, basketball, soccer because I was a girly girl, dance, cheer, all that. He said she needs to get tougher.” After taking to the track, the journey to get tough started in her school at lunchtime, citing “So that’s kind of where I started track, being everybody on the basketball court, being everybody.”
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