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SAN FRANCISCO – Track superstar Allyson Felix has already won more world titles than Usain Bolt, more Olympic medals than Carl Lewis, and is the most successful woman in the world to ever compete in track and field at the Olympic Games. Earlier this year she was named one of Time magazine’s Women of the Year.
On Thursday in San Francisco, Sports Illustrated will present Felix with one more honor, one named after the legendary boxer and activist who rightfully called himself “the greatest of all time:” The Muhammad Ali Legacy Award.
Felix is a Los Angeles native who, after 17 years and five Olympic Games in a row, only hung up her spikes less than a year ago. She is being feted at the Sportsperson of the Year Awards at The Regency Ballroom, not just for her accomplishments in her sport, but also for her continuing battle for what she calls “a more equal world.”
“I’m a person who is shy by nature and I don’t like to rock the boat,” Allyson Felix told Sports Illustrated. “So it was really, really difficult to be able to find that place to come forward and to share what had been going on.”
What was going on was discrimination based on pregnancy. Felix fought Nike for an endorsement contract that would ensure she wouldn’t be penalized for having a baby. Negotiating after her contract ended in December 2017, while pregnant, she asked for protection of her salary. Nike said no.
In 2019, after a complicated pregnancy and a premature delivery, Nike offered her a deal — with a 70% pay cut — but refused to tie the contract to maternity. So, Felix trained to return to racing form without a contract in hand, and learned she was not alone. Other Olympians started coming forward with similar stories about Nike.
“I felt a strong pull that I needed to be involved as an athlete who was going through a really difficult time, in real time,” Felix told SI. That’s when she decided to go public with her own bombshell op-ed.
Felix’s story went viral, launching worldwide media coverage an even a congressional investigation. It took months, but Nike finally gave into the pressure and announced a maternity policy guaranteeing 18 months of pay for sponsored athletes who have children. Nike’s rivals offering sponsorships followed suit.
She had everything to lose, but Felix didn’t stop — neither her activism nor her drive to win. She got back into competition just eight months after the birth of her daughter, Camryn. She left Nike in her dust and became the first athlete to sign with Athleta, the women-run sports apparel company owned by Gap, Inc. And with her brother, she became an entrepreneur who created her own, Made in the U.S.A. athletic footwear company, Saysh. Her other sponsors include Clorox and Nissan.
As for her activism, Maggie Mertens wrote in SI: “Felix hasn’t stopped using her voice, and her power, for other mother athletes — and mothers everywhere — to have better work protections, paid leave, improved health outcomes and access to affordable childcare. This tireless work and fearless advocacy are why she is this year’s Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award winner.”
Felix is married to her husband, Kenneth Ferguson and is a straight cisgender ally, who this past March declared she is “all for inclusion.”
But her name and her records often appear in articles making the case against transgender athletes. Also in March, Louisa Thomas wrote in the New Yorker: “In many sports involving timed races, men are roughly 10 to 12% faster than women. The Olympic track champion Allyson Felix’s lifetime best in the 400 meters is 49.26; in one year, 2017, that time was bettered by men and boys more than 15,000 times.”
Thomas went on to note that “Felix’s speed is not less remarkable because some number of teen-age boys are faster than she is.” Perhaps she also should have noted that comparing cisgender boys and men to one elite cisgender woman isn’t really helpful in trying to understand whether trans women athletes should be included in competition with cis women. And that is something Felix herself talked about, just ten days earlier, at PACnet ’22 in Huntington Beach, Calif.
Responding to a question from someone in the audience, Felix called trans inclusion a complex issue outside her expertise, but then she added this:
“I think there is a place for everybody and I want everybody to be involved, but I do think it is very complex and it’s a lot on every level — high school level, collegiate, professional,” she said. “I’m definitely not the one to make any decisions, but I do think we need to be thoughtful with the way that we do things and understand that we’re dealing with people, we’re dealing with young people, and we need to get it right.”
Felix is part of the Women’s Sports Foundation, an inclusive nonprofit whose slogan is “All girls. All women, All sports.” The foundation and Athleta worked with Felix last year to create a $200,000 grant to help support professional mom-athletes cover child care costs.
Felix is also fighting for wage equality and to end the gender pay gap, she told CBS News earlier this year: “”We’re talking about trying to push for true equality,” she said, following the $24 million settlement achieved by the U.S. Women’s national soccer team. “And so I think it’s kind of taking these baby steps, celebrating the wins where we get them, but not losing sight of the ultimate goal, which is to change that completely.”
In a recent Ted Talk, Felix said, “You don’t have to be an Olympian to create change for yourself and others. Each of us can bet on ourselves.”
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