Inspiring: Christian mom and Olympic sprinter Allyson Felix breaks world record held by Usain Bolt
EEW Magazine // Sports // Faith
Christian wife and mother Allyson Felix has done something remarkable—sailed past Usain Bolt’s record with her own record-shattering 12th gold medal at worlds.
This triumph in mixed relay (where two men and two women team up for four trips around the track) has catapulted the 33-year-old to new heights in her athletic career.
Credit: Jeff Cohen/Instagram
In a previous interview with Christianity Today, the amazing runner who was raised in a Christian home and has dedicated her heart to Jesus, said, "I pray a lot. I always make time to spend in the Word, just talking to God. My speed is a gift from God, and I run for his glory. Whatever I do, it all comes from Him."
Strength comes from Him too, and Felix needed lots of that to keep believing everything would be okay when her now 10-month-old daughter, Camyrn, was born two months prematurely and spent about a month in the neonatal intensive-care unit.
“The NICU is a heavy place. I never imagined motherhood would start there for me,” she said on Instagram.
Allyson was exhausted in the NICU with her premature daughter Camryn (Credit: Instagram/af85)
“I was exhausted physically and emotionally,” she added, but the Lord brought her through that as well as her fight with Nike.
Felix was among the Americans who banded together in protest this summer, getting Nike to change a long-standing policy that stopped payments to pregnant athletes in this sport.
After spending more than a decade cultivating a reputation as a classy champion, but a very private person, when she went public with her issues with Nike, that served as a tipping point to the movement begun earlier in the summer by Alysia Montano in track, and members of the U.S. women’s soccer team, who were fighting a similar battle on different turf for equal pay during their run to a World Cup victory.
All of it eventually made a difference — not only in the terms Nike was willing to rework in its endorsement contracts for elite athletes, but in the message it sent about equality.
“I think everything I went through this year ... it just brings it all back that it’s so much bigger than myself,” Felix said, who delivered via cesarean section that ravages the core muscles critical for sprinters trying to burst out of the blocks.
But this woman of God has overcome it all and is meeting her aim of bringing glory to God.
“I’ve had to fight a lot this year—for my health, for my daughter, for women & mothers, for what I deserve and for my fitness,” she said.
The fight has been worth it all and has ended in total victory.
EEW Magazine Online’s Denise Summers contributed to this report.
