Three years ago, at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Track & Field for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, Hobbs Kessler made a splashy debut as a professional athlete.

Just 18 at the time, he was coming off a sensational senior year of high school and was one of the most-hyped American runners of 2021. He didn’t qualify for those Olympics, but now as a seasoned veteran at the age of 21, Kessler established himself as one of the top contenders for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 roster, to be determined at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Track & Field, to be held June 21-30 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

Kessler was a relative latecomer to running. His first love was sport climbing, and at age 16 he represented the U.S. at the 2019 IFSC Youth World Championships. But by 2021, the Ann Arbor, Michigan, native emerged as a track and field prodigy, breaking the national high school record in the indoor mile with a spectacular 3:57.66 clocking. Then during the outdoor season, he set an U.S. Under-20 record in the 1500 meters of 3:34.36 (a time that only five other American men bettered that year).

On the eve of the Olympic trials, he signed a professional contract with Adidas and was ready to make the jump to elite competition. He acquitted himself nicely, advancing to the semifinals of the 1,500 meters. 

High expectations had been set, but there would be a bumpy transition to this new level of competition. In 2022, his first full year running professionally, Kessler didn’t advance out of the heats at the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships and saw only marginal improvement in his times. 

Things started to turn around in 2023, including a new personal best in the 1500 (3:32.61) at the Los Angeles Grand Prix in May. He made the finals at USATF Championships in July, bit finished sixth and did not qualify for the World Athletics Championships later that summer. 

Another opportunity did present itself, however, and Kessler made his Team USA debut at the inaugural World Athletics Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia, in October. Thanks to perfectly timed finishing kick, he scored the gold medal in a thrilling race. “That was pure euphoria,” he says of his exuberant finish-line reaction as he broke the tape. “I knew in the back of my head I could win it, but I’ve thought that a lot and also not won a lot. So you never know. It was a huge breakthrough. It felt good to cap off two disappointing years with a big win.”

He parlayed that confidence boost into a solid fall training block at high altitude in Flagstaff, Arizona, with his teammates at the Very Nice Track Club and new training partner Bryce Hoppel, a U.S. Olympian in the 800 meters in 2021. “It’s been fun hanging out with him,” Kessler says. “He’s been on the circuit, so I’ve learned a lot from him. He’s naturally calm and relaxed and I think being around that has really helped me.”

Kessler broke up the training with an occasional return to his first love, taking trips last fall to Red River Gorge in Kentucky for climbing. “It’s just one of those things that feels right to me,” he says. “The act itself feels so good. I love the puzzle of it, I love the challenge of it, I love the social aspects, I love being outside. It’s just an amazing thing.”