FELIX Allyson

General
MOTHERHOOD
In November 2018 her daughter Camryn was delivered prematurely at 32 weeks by an emergency Caesarean section. She had suffered from a severe case of pre-eclampsia, which threatens the life of a mother and baby. "My doctors told me that not only was my baby at risk, but I was at risk. All I cared about at that moment was my daughter surviving and didn't fully understand my life was threatened, too. Mothers don't die from childbirth, right? Not in 2019, not professional athletes, not at one of the best hospitals in the country. I thought maternal health was solely about fitness, resources, and care. If that was true, then why was this happening to me? I feel a greater sense of responsibility now. Of course, qualifying and going after gold medals is still on the top of my list but I also feel this opportunity to show my daughter so many things, show other girls a lot, and to just stand by a lot of my values. [I'm] just trying to be really smart about everything and being patient and sticking to the plan. As an athlete that's always difficult." (olympics.nbcsports.com, 16 May 2019; reuters.com, 07 Feb 2020)

LAST OLYMPIC GAMES
The 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo will be her fifth Games and she says it will also be her last. Her aim is to win another medal, which would take her Olympic tally to 10, but that after Tokyo she will retire to focus on her family. "This is it. I feel good with it because I feel like I'm just really happy with the place I'm at right now in life. I don't think I ever would've thought that I would have had a child, or been in the sport this long in general. I feel like I just want to go out really strong, at my best. It's been really a challenging year [2019], but an exciting future to look forward to. I still hope to experience the feeling of standing on that podium in 2021 and I hope my journey to try to get back there will inspire you to keep moving forward. It [athletics] has given me real joy, lifelong friends, allowed me the ability to travel the world and go into things I'm passionate about, I can lend my voice to something that's more meaningful, it's given me a whole life plan." (people.com, 22 Oct 2019; time.com, 24 Mar 2020; reuters.com, 16 Nov 2017)

BROTHER AND AGENT
Her brother Wes, a former elite sprinter, is her agent. He says she is hard on herself after a race, even when she wins. "I would say maybe five times she's actually been happy after a race. That's the toughest part of being her agent, seeing her sad. After every race, it's kind of torture because I know most likely she's going to be not too happy about something. Not in a really bad mood, but really tough on herself. She always sees room for improvement." At the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, Russian Federation, he carried her off the track after she collapsed with a torn hamstring. "My mother said she looked over in the stands, and the next thing she knew [Wes] was gone. No one knew how he actually got down there [onto the track], but there he was. But that's Wes. Since we were little, he's always taken care of me." (nytimes.com, 27 Aug 2015; espn.go.com, 18 Nov 2015; self.com, 31 Jul 2019)

Her gold medals in the women's 4x400m relay and the mixed 4x400m relay at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, brought her total world championship gold medal tally to 13, which is the most by any athlete from any nation. Prior to the world championships in 2019, she was equal with Usain Bolt on 11 world championship gold medals. She also holds the record for the most world championship medals of any colour, with 18 at the conclusion of the 2019 edition of the tournament. (SportsDeskOnline, 08 May 2020)

At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro she won her seventh, eighth and ninth Olympic medals, which brought her equal with Jamaican-Slovenian Merlene Ottey for the most Olympic medals [nine] won by a female athletics competitor from any nation. In Rio she also became the first female US athletics competitor to win more than six Olympic medals. (SportsDeskOnline, 08 May 2020)