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 competing on the track, her journey started at her school, at lunchtime, citing “So that’s kind of where I started track, beating everybody on the basketball court, beating everybody.” She for sure enjoyed winning and being the best. Her career began in a small AAU team, where she just skyrocketed to number 1.

She continued, “And so I started at this just little AAU team, and I was pretty good. I was like number one in my county by like eighth grade and stuff like that.” Her high school career was even more decorated when she tore her ACL, during freshman year, but she “came back, won state. My senior year was runner-up, I think my junior year, and that’s kind of like where it went.”

Recently she won the 60m title at the 2025 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, defeating Jacious Sears. But was her secret to it?

Celera Barnes does not work well in groups

The 2025 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships were held at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex on Staten Island, New York City from February 22–23 where the former UCLA track and field athlete won the 60m title. She also put on a brilliant performance last year in the competition, finishing third with a time of 7.09 seconds, but this year as she says in the post-race interview, “now I’m USA champion.”

Not only did she believe this was the result of years of hard work she had put in, but another factor that helped her win was the “coaching switch.” The switch worked wonders for the 26-year-old phenom as trusting the coach. She mentioned, “just to see this process play out how it has, it’s been such a blessing for me.”

Further talking of the switch, she said, “I’m an Adidas athlete, so I went to a couple of Adidas coaches. And then I don’t really work well in groups. I’m more of a one-on-one type of athlete.”

She loves the solitary style, and that’s what her coach, Logan Taylor, offered. She said, “Being with this coach, it’s just me and another athlete. And it’s just such a great experience for me, personally.”

With only two people to train, Logan’s attention must have been fully dedicated to only two, which means more time given to Barnes compared to any other coach, and if that is bringing results, what’s wrong with it? Maybe they can bring the USA an international medal in the world indoors, what do you think?