Allyson Felix

After leaving Athens, Felix and her coach Pat Connolly, who also guided the 1984 Olympic 100 meters champion Evelyn Ashford, parted ways as Connolly moved back to Virginia and Felix cited difficulties training alone.

Allyson Michelle Felix (born November 18, 1985) is a retired American track and field athlete who competed in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 400 meters.

Allyson Felix was born on November 18, 1985, in Los Angeles, California.

She is the daughter of Paul, an ordained minister and professor of New Testament at The Master's Seminary in Sun Valley, California, and Marlean, an elementary school teacher at Balboa Magnet Elementary.

In 2001, at the Debrecan World Youth Championships, Felix achieved her first international title in the 100 meters.

Her elder brother Wes Felix was also a sprinter, winning the 2002 USA Junior Championships in the 200 meters race and later, the Pac-10 championships in 2003 and 2004 as a collegiate athlete for USC.

Wes now acts as the agent for his sister.

Felix describes her running ability as a gift from God: "For me, my faith is the reason I run. I definitely feel I have this amazing gift that God has blessed me with, and it's all about using it to the best of my ability."

Allyson Felix attended Los Angeles Baptist High School in North Hills, California, where she was nicknamed "Chicken Legs" by her teammates, because the five-foot-six, 125-pound sprinter's body had skinny legs despite her strength.

Her slightness belied her speed on the track and strength in the gym, as she could deadlift at least 270 pounds while still in high school.

Felix credits much of her early success to her high school sprint coach, Jonathan Patton.

Felix began to discover her athletic talents after she tried out for track in the ninth grade.

Just ten weeks after that first tryout, she finished seventh in the 200 meters at the CIF California State Meet.

In the coming seasons, she became a five-time winner at the meet.

She specialized in the 200 meters from 2003 to 2013, then gradually shifted to the 400 meters later in her career.

In 2003, she was named the national girls' "High School Athlete of the Year" by Track and Field News.

As a senior, Felix finished second in the 200 meters at the US Indoor Track & Field Championships.

A few months later, in front of 50,000 fans in Mexico City, she ran 22.11 seconds, the fastest in history for a high school girl, though it could not count as a world junior record because there was no drug testing at the meet.

Felix graduated high school in 2003, making headlines by forgoing college eligibility to sign a professional contract with Adidas via her agent Nik Visger.

Adidas paid her an undisclosed sum and picked up her college tuition at the University of Southern California.

She graduated with a degree in elementary education.

At the 2003 U.S. national championships, the seventeen-year-old phenomenon finished second in the 200 meters sprint with a time of 22.59 seconds, earning her spot to the 2003 Paris World Championships.

In the quarter-finals of the 200 meters in Paris, Felix finished sixth in 23.33 seconds.

Across the short distances, Felix is a ten-time U.S. national champion (2004, 2005, 2007–2012, 2015 and 2016).

At the age of 18, Felix earned an Olympic silver medal in the 200 meters at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, behind Veronica Campbell of Jamaica; in doing so, she set a world junior record over 200 meters with her time of 22.18 seconds.

Felix played a key role on the United States women's relay teams, winning six additional Olympic gold medals: four consecutive medals at 4 × 400 meters (2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020) and two at 4 × 100 meters (2012 and 2016).

At 200 meters, Felix is the 2012 Olympic champion, a three-time world champion (2005–2009), a two-time Olympic silver medalist (2004 and 2008), and the 2011 world bronze medalist.

The 2012 and 2016 U.S. Olympic 4 × 100 m teams set a world record of 40.82 s and the second fastest time of 41.01 s, respectively.

With these six golds from relays and one from an individual event, Felix became the first female track and field athlete to ever win seven Olympic gold medals.

She is also the most decorated woman in Olympic track and field history and the most decorated American track and field athlete in Olympic history, having earned 11 total medals from five consecutive Olympic Games.

Felix is the most decorated athlete, male or female, in World Athletics Championships history with 20 career medals, 7 from individual events and 13 from team relays.

With a combined Olympic and World Championship total of 31 medals, she is also the overall most decorated athlete in track and field history, with 12 medals from individual events and 19 from relays.

Felix was the first athlete in track and field history to medal in 3 different relays, 4 × 100 m, 4 × 400 m and mixed 4 × 400 m.

Among Felix's notable performances, her 200 meters personal best of 21.69 seconds, which was set at the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials, ranked at the time as the third-fastest time ever run by an American woman and sixth-fastest time by a female athlete in history.

At 400 meters, she is the 2015 world champion, 2011 world silver medalist, 2016 Olympic silver medalist, 2017 world bronze medalist, and 2020 Olympic bronze medalist.

She also ran a 47.72-second leg on the U.S. women's 4 × 400 m relay team at the 2015 Beijing World Championships, recording the fastest split ever by an American woman, and third-fastest split ever by a female athlete.

Felix, along with Alysia Montaño and Kara Goucher, is credited with stirring public outcry over Nike's refusal to guarantee salary protections for its pregnant athletes, prompting the sportswear brand to expand its maternity policy in 2019.

Two years after her departure from Nike, the athlete turned entrepreneur launched her own footwear company, Saysh, in June 2021.

She was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2020 and 2021.

In 2022, Felix received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from her alma mater USC and also served as the commencement speaker for that year's graduation ceremony.