Allyson Felix

36-year-old Allyson Felix announced earlier this year that this would be her last season of track.

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Allyson Felix will compete in the world track and field championships one last time before retiring from the sport.

At 35, Felix became the oldest U.S. woman to win an Olympic track and field medal and the first person to win an individual track and field medal at five fully attended Olympics. “I was told [after childbirth] that was it for [my career],” Felix said. She finished sixth in the 400m at nationals to qualify for a ninth consecutive world championships team, going to worlds in the 4x400m relay pool. “I knew that I still had more to give.” The next day, she added 4x400m gold, her 11th Olympic medal, breaking Carl Lewis‘ record for the most track and field medals for an American. Felix said before those worlds that she wanted to build up for a 2016 Olympic 200m-400m double bid, but the first major injury of her career put everything into doubt. She won the 400m at trials, but the injury affected her more in the 200m, where she lacked the necessary explosive power. She ran two individual events at a global championship for the first time, in addition to two relays. In the final, Felix ran down a leading-but-tiring Bahamian Shaunae Miller-Uibo in the straightaway. Felix’s first (and lone) individual Olympic title came in one of the strongest women’s sprint fields in history. She contested solely the one-lap race at the national championships and then won the world title in the fastest time she’d ever run. Felix, who didn’t take a victory lap (perhaps out of inexperience), said that night in Greece, “When I was coming down the stretch, it was a lot of heart and giving it all I had. She won after switching coaches from Pat Connolly to Bobby Kersee following the Athens Games. Kersee has coached her ever since and has coached an Olympic gold medalist in every women’s sprint event — flat and hurdles. Felix, an 18-year-old who had turned pro out of high school, was runner-up to Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown to start what would become a rivalry that spanned three Olympics. Felix became the youngest Olympic medalist in an individual track race in 24 years.

As Allyson Felix prepares for her final competitive race at World Championships, the track world is grateful for what she's done away from the sport.

"I do speak to the athletes a lot. "We are very lucky that Allyson has one what she's done in our sport," Coe said. "You don't get the opportunity to expand or expand upon your views in the sport unless you're actually in a position to get asked about it. Felix wrote that she was fighting for financial protection in case she performed below-standard in the months after birth, but Nike refused. And that's what it's all about — the bigger picture." She left Nike and is now sponsored by Athleta. She runs in Saysh sneakers, a company she founded.

After setting a new world season best time in the qualifying round, the U.S. mixed 4x400 meter relay team fell to the Netherlands and the Dominican Republic ...

Felix, a seven-time Olympic gold medalist, joined the team for the finals after not participating in the qualifying heat. The U.S. team for the mixed 4x400 relay set a world season leading time of 3 minutes, 11.75 seconds during a qualifying heat Friday morning. The crowd at Hayward Field gave Felix and the rest of the U.S. team a standing ovation following the conclusion of the race.

Allyson Felix won her 19th and final medal in the world championships Friday night -- a bronze she took after running the second leg of America's ...

"And to have a picture with her, that's the most important to me. Godwin had a slim lead when he passed her the baton, and for the first 200 meters of her final lap around the track, Felix extended the margin. The U.S. finished in 3:10.16. The stat sheet said Felix ran her final 400 meters in 50.15 seconds. The Dominican Republic won in 3 minutes, 9.82 seconds, with a margin of 0.08 seconds. Felix was entered only in the mixed relay after failing to qualify for the worlds in an individual race. She has opened a better path for all of us." Much of that stemmed from becoming a mom, then fighting, and eventually leaving, Nike, which cut her salary while she was pregnant. The third-place finish still gave Felix her 19th medal at world championships, extending a record she already held. Some might say a bronze medal feels like a letdown for the most decorated sprinter in U.S. history. "It's a similar emotion," she said. So it was no huge shock that a runner 11 years her junior, Marileidy Paulino of the winning Dominican Republic team, eventually reeled her in. A few minutes later, she was taking her newly won prize and hanging it around her 3-year-old daughter's neck.

American track and field legend Allyson Felix's competitive career is now over after the United States took (BLANK) in the 4.

The season—and Felix's career—have now come to a close. .@allysonfelix soaks it all in on the track at her final #WorldAthleticsChamps after claiming her 19th world championship medal. The mixed 4x400-meter relay is fairly new to the international scene, as it made its debut at the 2019 Worlds and 2020 Tokyo Games. This marks Felix's first medal in the event. I want to say goodbye and thank you to the sport and people who have helped shape me the only way I know how—with one last run. This season isn’t about the time on the clock, it’s simply about joy." Poland, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica and Nigeria made up the rest of the octet from Eugene, Oregon's Hayward Field.

The American 'felt the love, felt the joy' as she took a world championship bronze in the final race of her career, the 4x4oom mixed relay.

Asked on Friday night what message she would tell her young self, Felix replied: “Every defeat, every failure, is an opportunity to get better. Just seeing the confidence that she had was amazing.” “But the work that Right to Play does is so much more important. Felix leaves her sport having hoarded a stupendous tally of 30 Olympic and world championship medals over the past 18 years, a tally that may never be beaten. “The last couple of years I have stepped outside of just the clock and the medals,” she said after the race. But greatness is not measured on one stopwatch but over many and few can match Felix’s longevity, her range of events or her voice on important issues. And what I hope to do from now on is to really support female and mum athletes and carry on the childcare initiative I have. She is loving her best life.” “And so I feel really proud tonight, and fulfilled.” “She is three. She was still beaming deep into the night when she spoke movingly about inspiring her three-year-old daughter, Camryn, who watched on. “She is getting ice cream,” Felix shot back, laughing.

Allyson Felix capped her career with a 30th global outdoor championships medal. It was bronze at track and field worlds in Eugene.

Jacobs has been sidelined by illness and injury since winning the world indoor 60m title in March. Bradshaw snapped a pole in warm-up, felt discomfort and withdrew as a precaution, according to British Athletics. Of those 30 medals, 20 are gold, also a record for the most combined Olympic and world titles in the sport. Only one man has run faster than that this year — Kerley, the Olympic silver medalist. “It definitely felt different,” on Friday, she said, looking forward to retirement — eating ice cream and taking daughter Camryn to soccer practice. The U.S. did not enter its best 400m runners in the event.

Americans (from left) Kennedy Simon, Elija Godwin, Allyson Felix and Vernon Norwood took bronze at the world championships. Photo by Chris Stone.

“There’s so much to take away from the moment,” she said, whether it’s “a great moment or a low moment, there’s something to learn. “It’s four of us out there on the track tonight and that’s what (we ought to) focus on,” Godwin said. But she said: “I’m a fan of the sport. You run as hard as you can and leave it all on the track.” But he was effectively fifth on the depth chart, since Diamond League champion Michael Cherry had a bye to the Oregon meet. Felix said she couldn’t imagine running masters track — the unpaid circuit of older-adult age-group meets. … You’re going to see a lot more smaller countries being competitive in the event.” “It’s really cool because fans really enjoy it,” said the Los Angeles native. If the others had the opportunity, we still come out victorious.” - “If the USA is not interested in winning (which it was obviously not), why field a team at all? “But we could have picked a [world-record] squad easily. We ran the best we could without any change.

Allyson Felix won a bronze medal in the final race of her career, a moment that brought her joy and provided closure.

She spotted signs in the crowd. She took the baton from Godwin as the second leg holding a lead. She was not lock to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, and then she finished second at U.S. trials. Last week, out of curiosity, Jonathas looked up the origins of the name Allyson and discovered what she believed to be a perfect description. When Felix reflects on the final chapter of her career, she cannot believe she made it through. Nike, the shoe company that had sponsored her all her career, wanted to cut her pay as she recovered. That’s the spirit I hope she carries over, the confidence I hope that she has. From the archives: As a runner, Allyson Felix didn’t want to speak out. For most of her career, the result would have eaten at Felix. In her prime, she maintained a narrow focus on victory. She milled next to her teammates Elija Godwin, Vernon Norwood and Kennedy Simon. She joined them on the lowest step of the podium, smiling as she received her bronze medal and a handshake from Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff. She had first worn a Team USA uniform in 2003 as a 17-year-old prodigy. She always fought, and even in her final race she had run until the muscles in her legs twitched and burned. She said goodbye Friday at Hayward Field, running the second leg of the mixed 4X400 relay at the first track and field world championships contested in the United States. The U.S. quartet finished third and took bronze, losing a large lead in the homestretch of the anchor leg.

Allyson Felix capped her career with a 30th global outdoor championships medal. It was bronze at track and field worlds in Eugene.

Jacobs has been sidelined by illness and injury since winning the world indoor 60m title in March. Bradshaw snapped a pole in warm-up, felt discomfort and withdrew as a precaution, according to British Athletics. Of those 30 medals, 20 are gold, also a record for the most combined Olympic and world titles in the sport. Only one man has run faster than that this year — Kerley, the Olympic silver medalist. “It definitely felt different,” on Friday, she said, looking forward to retirement — eating ice cream and taking daughter Camryn to soccer practice. The U.S. did not enter its best 400m runners in the event.

Felix won yet another world championship medal, her 19th. “I think I felt all the emotions,” she said of her final competitive race.

And I’m not that emotional of a person,” she said. “The first thing I think I felt was lactic acid,” she said of handing off the baton to Vernon Norwood. “But after that, just joy.” “I think I felt all the emotions. She leaves behind an unmatchable legacy, having won yet another world championship medal, her 19th, extending her record for the most medals at the world championships. In the moments after the race, opposing athletes approached her for photos, handshakes and fist bumps. “A lot of people were like, Oh, it’ll be amazing to end at home, on home soil in Oregon.”