66 TIME July 19/July 26, 2021
TOKYO
OLYMPICS
has already won more world- championship gold
medals than any other track-and-fi eld athlete
ever—will become the most decorated female
track-and-fi eld athlete in Olympic history. And
now her infl uence resonates well beyond her re-
cords. Earlier this year, Bianca Williams, a Nike-
sponsored sprinter from Britain who had a baby
in March 2020, reached out to Felix. After Felix
called out the sportswear giant, Nike expanded
payment protections for pregnant women and
new mothers. “Without her, I wouldn’t be where
I am now,” says Williams. “I’m so grateful for her
for speaking up, because she has changed a lot of
women’s lives.”
FOR ALL OF HER RECORDS, individual Olym-
pic glory has been elusive. She was a key part of
gold-medal-winning relay teams, but individual
events have caused heartbreak. At 18, a year out
of high school, Felix ran in her fi rst Olympics,
the 2004 Athens Games. She fi nished second in
the 200 m, and sobbed afterward. After another
disappointing silver in Beijing in 2008, she fi -
nally earned her individual gold in 2012 in Lon-
don. Rio was set up as a career capstone: Felix
would attempt to win golds in both the 200 m
and 400 m. But a freak accident before the
Olympic trials—she injured her ankle after land-
ing on a medicine ball—derailed those plans. She
didn’t qualify in the 200, and in the 400 m in
Rio, Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas eked
a win over Felix by diving across the fi nish line.
While Felix acknowledges Miller-Uibo didn’t
violate the rules, she insists she’d never dive.
“I wouldn’t want to win that way,” Felix says.
“In my opinion, it’s not respectable.”
It was not the note on which Felix wanted to
end her Olympic career, so she decided to push
on to Tokyo. That’s when life got complicated.
Wes Felix—Allyson’s older brother and agent—
and Nike began contract renegotiations in Sep-
tember 2017. Nike, says Wes, proposed a 70%
pay cut. In June 2018, Allyson told Wes she was
pregnant. Fearing that Nike could rescind the
off er if it found she was starting a family, Allyson
and Wes decided to hide her pregnancy.
The fear was not unfounded. Olympic run-
ner Kara Goucher left Nike in 2014, and has said
the company stopped paying her when she got
pregnant with her son in 2010. Another former
Nike runner, Alysia Montaño, claimed the com-
pany also told her it would stop paying her when
she was pregnant. Nike has said it fulfi lled its
contractual obligations, which until late 2019 in-
cluded the right to cut athlete pay for any reason.
As she started to show, Felix would train be-
fore dawn so no one could see her working out.
She wore baggy clothes. She limited her baby
shower to about 15 people, and told guests not to
bring phones. Felix sacrifi ced all the rituals of a
fi rst-time pregnancy out of fear for the fi nancial
security of the family she was about to have.
“It was super isolating and very lonely,” she says.
“I think about that a lot. All of those things that
you look forward to, those experiences of em-
bracing that time, I didn’t get to do any of that.
I don’t feel like I ever really was pregnant.”
About 10 days after the baby shower, at a
routine checkup, Felix told her doctor that her
feet had been swelling—unbeknownst to her,
a sign of preeclampsia. Felix acknowledges her
privileged position, with health insurance and
access to excellent care. Still, she says no one
told her about the increased risks Black women
face during pregnancy. She’s determined to see
this changed. “My main focus is on awareness,”
says Felix. The U.S., she notes, “is a very
dangerous place for a woman of color to give
birth. And that shouldn’t be the case.”
The doctor sent Felix to the hospital; she’d
have to deliver her baby immediately. On oxygen
and being prepped for an emergency C-section,
she called Wes in Los Angeles and suggestedSTEPH CHAMBERS—GETTY IMAGES
ALLYSON
FELIX
SPORT
Track and fi eldAGE
35COUNTRY
U.S.TROPHY CASE
Nine-time Olympic
medalist (most-
decorated female
U.S. track-and-fi eld
athlete); 13 career
world-championship
gold medalsOLYMPIC
APPEARANCES
5
(includes Tokyo)