Masai Russell needs a name for her alter ego. Something like Sasha Fierce, who was the aggressive, audacious version of Beyoncé. Like Tina Snow: the raw-but-smooth, street-savvy side of Megan Thee Stallion.
Or Cindi Mayweather: the futuristic revolutionary core of Janelle Monáe. Russell, 24, is searching for the perfect moniker to acknowledge and personify the other half of her dichotomized existence. Her boyfriend, Rob Springfield — also an alum of the Kentucky Wildcats track program and an assistant coach at Morehead State — “likes to call her ‘pretty killer,'” Russell said.
But that’s more a description than an identity. Advertisement At 5-foot-4 and slender enough to evade raindrops, Russell is the opposite of intimidating in appearance. With a smile worthy of a commercial, doting eyes and perennially immaculate makeup, her aura exudes more model than monster.
But the monster is in there. And it savors the hardest tasks. “When I step out on a line,” Russell said, “or when I step up against something challenging, something in me is just like, ‘We’re gonna get this done.
We’re gonna attack this to the best of your ability, and we’re gonna get it done.’ ..
. The other side of me, the alter ego side, the side that competed at the Olympics , I think that side would say, ‘Abso-f—ing-lutely.'” Russell is the Olympic 100-meter hurdles champion because of a sheer will she’d imagined but never experienced.
Pushed to the brink of doubt, she dre.