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Olympic sprinter Allyson Felix broke Usain Bolt’s record for most gold medals at the Track and Field World Championships in Dota, Qatar, on September 29th, 2019.
Felix, 33, is the most decorated Track and Field athletes at the Olympics. Between four Olympic games, she has won nine medals, with six of those being gold.
Overall, these national and Olympic titles include the 200m, 400m, 4x100m, 4x400m, and most recently, Mixed 4x400m relay.
Felix’s success came with a battle to achieve it, as the 2019 track season is her first season as a mother.
In November, 2018, Felix had an emergency C-section at 32 weeks after a pregnancy that led to Felix developing severe preeclampsia. Felix’s daughter, Camryn, spent her first 29 days in the NICU.
This was shortly after Felix lost her 7 year contract with Nike, in part due to financial protections for pregnant athletes.
Despite these setbacks in health, family, and career, Felix planned to persevere, and six weeks after giving birth, was power-walking, albeit with great difficulty.
“If I come back and I’m just not the same, if I can’t make a fifth Olympic team, I’m gonna know that I fought, that I was determined, and that I gave it my absolute all. And if it doesn’t end up the way I imagined in my head, it’ll be okay. I just have to go for it, because that’s just simply who we are now,” said Felix.
However, Felix’s performance this season has secured her position on her fifth Olympic team.
Felix
played a key role in Nike changing its policies regarding the contracts of pregnant athletes and ensure they will not be, according to the updated Nike policy, “adversely impacted financially for pregnancy” for 18 months, rather than the former 12.