Allyson Felix is now the greatest U.S. Olympian track athlete of all time after securing her 11th medal.
Felix earned her 11th medal when the U.S. women’s 4 x 400-meter relay won gold alongside Sydney McLaughlin, Athing Mu and Dalilah Muhammad.
And the silver team, Poland, trailed behind by more than three and a half seconds.
Felix has previously tied with Jamaica’s Merlene Ottey, who has nine medals. Just yesterday, she was tied with Carl Lewis for the most medals by an American track-and-field athlete. She has now surpassed Lewis’ 10 medals. Felix currently holds 18 world championship medals, including 13 golds.
In June, Felix finished second in the 400-meter race at the U.S. track trials in Eugene, Oregon. Her fifth Olympics since her 2004 Athens Games debut. She was just 18 at the time.
In 2019, Felix wrote an op-ed in The New York Times revealing that Nike said it would pay her 70% less than she earned before she became a mother.
She confessed to feeling “completely terrified” of taking on the sportswear giants.
“I didn’t know what was going to come of it, but the one thing that really gave me the courage was being the mother of a little girl,” Felix told TODAY co-host, Savannah Guthrie, this week.
“I didn’t want her to have these same battles, you know, twenty years down the line, that I was facing and that so many of my colleagues have faced, so many women before me,” she said of her daughter. “I just felt like it was time and no matter how scared I was, I had to step forward and to share my own story.”
Felix also teamed up with Athleta to give Olympian moms money to pay for childcare.
“It’s so important, because obviously as a mom, first hand, I know those struggles that we’re facing,” said Felix. “I didn’t want…childcare to be a burden for other athletes.”
