Highlights: Allyson Felix won her first Gold Medal as a mother, now has more World titles than any other Athlete.
Allyson Felix way back on Track
Emphasis on the 12 career gold medals she has won. And breaking her tie with Usain Bolt. How the Team USA won gold in the 4x400M relay race. Lastly, Felix during her pregnancy. How she came back on track.
Allyson Felix didn’t just only win her first gold medal as a mother, she also broke her tie with Usain Bolt for the most gold medals in world championships history with 12.
Felix’s world titles Bolt’s world titles
3 – 200M 3 – 100M
1 – 400M 4 – 200M
3 – 4 x 100M 4 – 4 x 100M
4 – 4 x 400M
1 – Mixed 4 x 400M
Felix downplayed the achievement of taking sole possession of the title she once shared with Bolt: “it’s different. This is a different event, and so I don’t really look at in that way. For me, it’s just about getting to run a new fun event and making my way back to the stage.”
Felix, known as the most decorated female track and field athlete at the Olympics with 9 medals among 4 games as part of the USA team that went to Doha, Qatar for the first IAAF World Athletics Championship mixed-gender 4 x 400M relay. American sprinter, Wilbert London ran the first leg of the relay before handing off to Felix, who did justice to the second leg and ran it in 50.4 seconds. Courtney Okolo took off from her(Felix) before handing off to Michael Cherry to anchor the winning leg of the race that saw Team USA finished on a world record time of 3:09.34.
Allyson Felix after their triumph told Lewis Johnson on NBCSN: “so special, to have my daughter here watching, means the world to me.” she added, “It’s been a crazy year for me.”
Felix with 17 medals overall (12 gold + 3 silver and 2 bronze medals) already had the highest for male or female in world championship competitions. Attention will be on her to compete in next year’s Olympics in Tokyo, which would be her fifth one and also make her the oldest to do so in any gender.
Allyson Felix way back on Track
Felix in November 2017, battled preeclampsia and underwent an emergency C-Section at 32 weeks to deliver her daughter, Camryn. A month later, she talked about her struggle to keep up the image of a world-class athlete in the midst of a pregnancy and birth story to ESPN.
Part of what she said was: “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 I don’t end up the way I imagined in my head, it’ll be OK. I just have to go for it., because that’s just simply who we are now.”
It happened that she had put behind her what occurred during her pregnancy period. Her first meet as a mom was USATF Outdoor Championships in July. Not quite long after the championship, she announced her new apparel deal with Athleta, also putting behind her Nike contract that got expired without being renewed, at least in part over pay protection for pregnancy in December 2017. According to Athleta, Felix’s contract and compensation is consistent regardless of her competing or not, including full protection during maternity.
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