Allyson Felix Shares Plans for Final Race at the World Championships After Announcing Retirement
Allyson Felix may soon have the chance to win gold during her last official race ever.
On Saturday, the athlete shared that she will return to the World Championships to race in the women’s 4×400 relay preliminaries after announcing her retirement from the sports last week, according to the Associated Press.
“The coaches asked if I was available and there was no way I’d turn the team down,” she said in a statement to the outlet.
Felix, 36, will participate in the relay, which will then see its final held on Sunday to conclude the world championships.
Last Friday, the sprinter announced she was officially retiring from the track after helping the United States win bronze at the World Track and Field Championships.
“I felt the love,” Felix told reporters after the race, which was held in the U.S. for the first time in Eugene, Oregon, according to ESPN. “And I felt joy running tonight.”
Felix, the most decorated sprinter in United States history, has 19 career medals at World Championships to go along with the 11 she earned at five Olympic Games.
The sports star previously compared her bronze win — alongside relay teammates Elija Godwin, Vernon Norwood and Kennedy Simon — to the one she earned in the women’s 400 at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
“It’s a similar emotion,” she said, per the Washington Post.
“The last couple years, I’ve stepped outside of the clock, the medals,” the mom to 3-year-old daughter Camryn explained.
“I never would have imagined that that would have been a place I would come to. But I have. It’s being a representation for women, mothers, and I really felt that. It was an emotional day. I felt it all over from people telling me and messages. I feel really proud tonight. I feel fulfilled.”
Felix first announced her plans to retire in April with an Instagram post telling fans she’d given the sport everything she had.
“As a little girl they called chicken legs, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d have a career like this,” Felix wrote at the time. “I have so much gratitude for this sport that has changed my life. I have given everything I have to running and for the first time I’m not sure if I have anything left to give.”
