By: Richard Huang

In April, American legendary printer Allyson Felix announced that

she will retire at the end of the 2022 season.

Felix came to the public’s view in 2003 when she finished in second

place at the US trials and qualified for her first World

Championships.

At the latest World Athletic Championships in Eugene, Oregon, she

brought a bronze home again in the 4×400 mixed relay.

“It was a night I will cherish. I’ve had such good memories,” she

said. “I know it is time and these guys will carry it on into the future.

I am at peace stepping into this next stage and have tremendous

gratitude for this sport.”

In her two-decade career, Felix has won more Olympic medals than

any other American sprinter in history—eleven medals with seven

golds. She is also the “Greatest-Of-All-Time” in World

Championships, in which she won 19 medals, 13 of which were

gold.

However, it is not only the achievements that she had done on the

track that make her noteworthy—she also fights for women and

maternal rights.

In November 2018, Felix gave birth to her daughter eight weeks

prematurely because she had pre-eclampsia, a serious medical

condition that could potentially be life-threatening to the baby and

the mother, and it is disproportionally prevalent among black

women. This inspired her to raise awareness of maternal mortality.

“After enduring the two most terrifying days of my life, I learned my

story was not so uncommon. There were others like me, just like

me… black like me, healthy like me and doing their best, just like

me. And they faced death like me, too,” she said at the Congress in

2019. “We need to provide women of color with more support

during their pregnancies. There’s a level of racial bias within our

healthcare system that is troubling and will be difficult to tackle, but

that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.”

Felix also has trouble being a new mother. Despite all of her success,

her sponsor Nike wanted to pay her 70% less than before. She then

wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times explaining the

situation.

“I’ve tried not to show emotion, to anticipate what people expect

from me and to do it. I don’t like to let people down. But you can’t

change anything with silence.”

Months after this article, Nike had announced their new maternal

policy regarding all their sponsored athletes. It promised that the

athletes will get paid higher than usual for 18 months around

pregnancy.

“I’m trying to leave the sport better than I found it, trying to support

female athletes and women in general and fight for more equality,”

she said.