Felix sets record with 10th medal

TOKYO: Allyson Felix finished third in the 400 metres on Friday to win her 10th career medal and become the most decorated woman in the history of Olympic track. The 35-year-old Felix, a stalwart of American track and field, started in the outside lane and outraced Stephanie Ann McPherson of Jamaica to take third place by .15 seconds.

Shaunae Miller-Uibo blew away the field, winning in 48.36 seconds to defend her Olympic title from Rio de Janeiro.

Felix’s 10th Olympic medal broke a tie with Jamaican runner Merlene Ottey, and matches Carl Lewis, who also won 10 medals and was alone as the most decorated US athlete in track.

The victory for Felix comes nearly three years after she helped spearhead a conversation about the way women are treated in track, and sports in general. She severed ties with Nike, which wrote in pay reductions to women’s contracts if they became pregnant. Felix had a daughter in 2018.

She won the race wearing a shoe she designed for a company she created.

This is the first bronze medal of an Olympic career that spans back to the 2004 Athens Games. Earlier, she had won six gold and three silver. She could go for No.11 if the US puts her in the 4x400 relay final, which is set for Saturday night.

While third place might have been a letdown in the past for Felix—famous are the snapshots of her crying in the recesses of the stadium after some hardluck losses in Athens and Beijing—this one was nothing but sweet. Felix has spoken candidly about the struggle to come back from a difficult pregnancy that led to an emergency C-section and put the lives of both her and her baby in jeopardy.

She’s spoken of the pressure she felt to return quickly, even when her body wasn’t responding the way it

once did.