Five-time Olympian Allyson Felix to hang up her spikes following the 2022 season

The most decorated female track and field Olympian is starting her final lap.

Allyson Felix, 36, announced on Instagram this is her final season. At the Tokyo 2020 Games last summer, Felix won her 11th medal to break a tie with Carl Lewis for most medals in U.S. Olympic track and field history. Only Paavo Nurmi, the legendary Finn who won 12 medals in the 1920s, has won more Olympic hardware.

Although Felix made it clear her fifth Olympic Games would be her last, she left the door open to continue running.

The World Championships will be held on U.S. soil for the first time in Eugene, Oregon, in July, and that was no doubt a factor in Felix’s decision to stick around for one more year. If she makes the U.S. team, this would be her ninth straight World Championships dating back to 2005.

But Felix can see the finish line. Next to a photo showing her in full stride, she wrote, “As a little girl they called chicken legs, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d have a career like this. 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. I want to say goodbye and thank you to the sport and people who have helped shape me the only way I know how—with one last run. This season isn’t about the time on the clock, it’s simply about joy. If you see me on the track this year I hope to share a moment, a memory and my appreciation with you.”

After giving birth to daughter Camryn in 2018 following a difficult pregnancy, Felix became an advocate for women in sports. She left longtime sponsor Nike because it wanted to reduce her contract, and the public controversy led the sportswear giant to change its policies toward expectant mothers. Felix has since started her own shoe company called Saysh, which is a community-centered lifestyle brand that creates products for, and by, women.

”This season I’m running for women,” wrote Felix, who is the founder and president of Saysh. “I’m running for a better future for my daughter. I’m running for you. More to come on that, so stay tuned, but I’ll be sharing a series of announcements that I’m hoping will make the world better for women.”

Felix concluded, “Here’s to my final season.” She had garnered more than 80,000 likes within 15 hours.

The sprinter has not opened her campaign yet. She is not running an individual event Saturday in the USATF Golden Games at the Mt. SAC Relays, but will be part of a 4 x 400 relay with Sydney McLaughlin, Olympic gold medalist in 400-meter hurdles, and Athing Mu, gold medalist in the 800. The meet is in Walnut, California, near Felix’s home in Los Angeles.

A five-time Olympian, Felix has won seven gold medals, three silvers and a bronze. She made her first Olympic team in 2004, winning a silver medal in the 200 meters at age 18. She then won her only individual gold in that event in 2012. In Tokyo, Felix added a bronze in the 400 meters at age 35 after being nipped at the finish line by Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who dove for the gold.

During Felix’s outdoor career, she also ran the 100 and was instrumental in Team USA relay victories in the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400, winning six Olympic gold medals.

Felix also has won an unprecedented 19 World Championships medals — 14 golds (one indoor), three silvers and two bronzes. She will try to add to that total in Eugene.

The native of Los Angeles gave up a collegiate career to run professionally, although she went to the University of Southern California and graduated with a degree in elementary education.

While running her last individual Olympic race, the 400 meters, Felix said she was thinking, “Fight, dig.” After she finished, she lay on her back on the track in sheer exhaustion.

Yet one thought crossed her mind, “Just joy,” she said. Yet, Felix, whose time of 49.46 seconds was her fastest since 2015, was too tired to take her victory lap.

This was Felix’s first bronze, yet it symbolized more than her other medals. “I feel like all the other ones I was really just so focused on the performance,” she said, “and this one, it’s so much bigger than that. 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.”

And unlike her other four Olympic Games, Felix said, “Nobody thought I was going to be here.” After fighting to get back into shape following the birth of her daughter, Felix said, “I hear the chatter. I think people thought it was a long shot for me to even be on the U.S. team and then I knew I wasn’t a pick for the medals, but just give me a shot.”

She qualified second in the Olympic Trials behind Quanera Hayes. In the Olympic final, she drew Lane 9, far to the outside. Yet as she rounded the final curve, she could tell she was in position to make the podium.

”I always believe in myself, " Felix said.

She proved that to any doubters in 2019 when she made the world championships team several months after having her baby, earning gold medals on the 4 x 400 relay (running only the preliminary round, which does not count in her official World Athletics bio) and on the inaugural mixed 4 x 400 relay.

In Tokyo, Felix was part of a star-studded relay team composed of McLaughlin, Dalilah Muhammad, the 400 hurdles runner-up and Mu. They won the gold with the fifth-fastest relay of all time.

Felix has also inspired the younger generation. “I’m truly just honored,” Mu said, “to have been a part of this team with her on her last Olympics.”

Now the veteran sprinter has one last Worlds to go.