TOKYO
OLYMPICS
68 TIME July 19/July 26, 2021
FELIX WON RELAY
GOLD IN RIO BUT IS
CHASING INDIVIDUAL
GOLD IN TOKYO
tion: in July 2019, she signed with Athleta, the
women-focused apparel brand, which off ered
full maternity benefi ts should she decide to have
another child. Athleta had never signed an ath-
lete, and the partnership felt like a statement.
That September, at the track-and-fi eld world
championships in Doha, Qatar, Felix won her
12th and 13th career gold medals—her fi rst as a
mother— breaking Usain Bolt’s record for cham-
pionship golds.
Despite her accomplishments, at times
Felix still feels overlooked. At a May workout,
a woman spotted Felix holding an Athleta water
bottle and approached her. “Do you know who
Simone Biles is?” she asked. Um, yeah. “It’s in-
credible how she left Nike to go to Athleta,” said
the woman, having no idea she was talking to the
person who had helped make it happen.
Saysh, Felix’s new brand, could help elimi-
nate such confusion. The company, which has
raised $3 million in seed money from investors,
sees an opening in the women’s footwear mar-
ket, which Felix says has been underserved by
a “shrink it and pink it” mentality. Too often,
Felix says, women’s sneakers are not designed for
women’s feet. Saysh is also selling community: at
the launch, $150 gets you a pair of Saysh sneak-
ers and access to content like workout videos and
conversations with athletes and advocates.
Few Olympians have struck out on their own to
this degree. Felix is now her own footwear spon-
sor: she will run in a Saysh track spike in Tokyo.
AS THE PANDEMIC shut down athletic facilities,
Felix resorted to running pretty much anywhere:
grassy medians by the beach, the cement around
UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, trails, neighborhood
streets. “It was guerrilla- style training,” she says.
Her coach, Bobby Kersee, set distances with his
measuring wheel. When she could fi nally access
a proper track, she’d quickly get kicked out.
During one workout, someone patched up the
fence around the track. So Felix—and a group
of elderly locals going for their morning walk—
was locked in. “That’s when I found out Bobby
travels with wire cutters,” says Felix.
Balancing unconventional training with
starting a company and raising a 2-year-old
proved diffi cult. But Felix made it back to the
Games through dark times, with a voice stronger
than ever. In years past, for example, she would
have been too wary of repercussions to criticize
the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for
its policy prohibiting acts of protest at the Games.
In July, the IOC announced it would allow athletes
to demonstrate before competitions, but still not
on the medal stand; Felix is not ruling out her own
form of protest—and IOC defi ance—in Tokyo.
“There are real-world issues going on, and it
doesn’t feel in the Olympic spirit to be censored,”
she says. “I don’t feel like it’s off the table.”
Running can be a solitary pursuit. And Felix
has arrived at this moment by standing alone in
the biggest fi ghts of her career. But what some
see as loneliness can be liberation. “I sat back
for too long,” says Felix, reclining on her couch
after putting Camryn to bed. “I almost started
to believe that maybe I don’t have anything else
to off er. I never really showed too much of who
I am because people could dissect you, and then
they might fi nd this out or that out and not like
you. But when you speak your truth, on the other
side of that fear is freedom.” —With reporting
by MARIAH ESPADA/WASHINGTON □