INSIDE: Allyson Felix’s recordsetting night and a bronze medal that brought her joy.
TOKYO >> On the most important night of a journey in which she has given so many women a voice, Allyson Felix thought about her own, and what she would one day tell her daughter, Camryn, age 2, about the race in front of her, the Olympic Games 400-meter final.
“I thought about this before I came out tonight,” Felix said. “I think the biggest thing I want her to know is that when you go out and do something, you do it with character and you do it with integrity and you do it to the best of your ability. That’s all anybody can ask of you, and if you do that you’re proud of that and that’s enough.”
And so Felix walked off the track Friday night after the final Olympic individual race of a career that stretched across five Games, her head held high, having run brave and true, claiming an unexpected bronze medal, a triumph in a contest that was never just about running fast.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo, of the Bahamas, successfully defended the Olympic 400 title. She just edged Felix, running 48.36 at Olympic Stadium. Maileidy Paulino, of the Dominican Republic, captured the silver in 49.20 with a late surge.
And there was Felix, 35, out in lane 9, a long shot just to make the U.S. team, fighting every step of the way until she crossed the finish line in 49.46 for her the 10th Olympic medal, the most ever by a woman and equaling Carl Lewis as the most decorated American track and field athlete.
Felix, who starred in high school at Los Angeles Baptist, is expected to take to the Olympic track one final time Saturday night as part of Team USA’s 4×400 relay and a shot at an 11th medal, her seventh gold.
“I don’t really rank them,” Felix said of her medals. “This one is just so different. Honestly, it’s my first bronze medal, oh man, it’s hard to describe. I feel like all the other ones I was just really so focused on the performance. This one it’s so much bigger than that. That’s all I can kind of explain it as. I was out there running but I felt like I was a representation for so much more than just trying to get down the track.”
Since her Rio, Felix got married, had Camryn, started a shoe company, and became a leading voice for maternity protections and health, especially in the Black and other minority communities.
“Her legacy is just showing everyone you can do what you want to do,” said sprinter Gabby Thomas, who anchored the U.S. to a silver medal in the 4×100 relay Friday night. “She hasn’t let anything stop her.”
Her May 2019 op-ed in the New York Times criticizing Nike’s maternity policies triggered a national conversation on the topic.
Felix, long one of the most recognizable female athletes sponsored by Nike, detailed in the piece how the Beaverton, Oregon company offered her a 70% pay cut during December 2017 contract negotiations. Felix, who was pregnant at the time, also said Nike failed to put clear guarantees in the contract for maternity protections she had requested.
“I’ve been one of Nike’s most widely marketed athletes,” Felix wrote. “If I can’t secure maternity protections, who can?”
Felix recently told Time that her “stomach dropped” when Nike asked her to participate in a female empowerment ad for the company during the maternity protections negotiations.
“I was like, this is beyond disrespectful and tone deaf,” she said.
Nike made maternity policy changes after the Felix op-ed, including guaranteeing athletes salaries and bonuses for 18 months around pregnancy. But by then Felix had left Nike and signed an apparel deal with Athleta. She recently announced she was also launching a shoe line called Saysh.
“We’re working to change industry standards,” Felix said Friday night. “I think that is going to be a long battle. I just think that moms are deserving of funding and support. There’s a lot of work to do. But hopefully, I’ve brought some attention to those things. That what I was trying to do.”
Felix was getting her 32-week check up when she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure and damage to the liver and kidney and that can be fatal to both mother and baby. Felix underwent an emergency Csection. Camryn weighed 3 pounds, 8 ounces at birth.
, Felix was written off before the Olympic Trials, and written off again in Tokyo.
“I always believe in myself. I trust my training. I trust Bobby,” she said referring to longtime coach Bobby Kersee.