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opening day starts

By Arnie Leshin

It was the final of the women’s 400 raced at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon back in June. In the preliminaries, Allyson Felix, on her final run before retiring as the most accomplished women’s track and field athletic in United States history, made the finals and needed at least a third place to qualify for the world championships to be raced at this same dressed-up, picturesque site.
The 36-year-old owner of more United States and Olympic medals than anyone in history, she needed a strong finish to gain the finals. It was a tight race and she was chasing the leaders at the 200 meters turn, but in the final stretch, she gave it all she had and settled for sixth. 
 
No 400 finals, but coming in sixth place qualified her to run with the 4 x 400 mixed relay team at the first world championships to be held in the USA, and when the event takes off Friday night she will at least have a shot at her final world championship medal.
 
Except for this anticipated event when two men and two women race for each country and coaches decide in what order their runners will run, men with women or Vica-versa, opening day begins in the morning and there will be mostly field events and very few finals. 
 
Thus, Felix and her quartet will be in the spotlight, will be shown later in highlight films, and 7 p.m. in Mountain  Central Time. 
 
“I’m looking forward to it,” she said after arriving here earlier in the week and working out under long-time head coach Bob Kersee, whose wife, Jackie Joyner (Flo Jo), will be alongside him watching her friend Felix pass the baton. 
 
Felix will also be accompanied by her 4-year-old daughter Camfyn. That’s the pride and joy of her and her husband Kenneth Ferguson. Camfyn has school in the morning, and mom racing at night. 
 
“She still keeps bugging me about doing the steeplechase where you hit the water after each hurdle,” Felix said, “and I keep telling her to forget it, it’s much too difficult. But she does understand this thing about my retirement after tonight.”
 
Presently, the grand total for Felix in awards amounts to 26 Olympic and world championships medals. There have been a ton of others, but these are the most prestigious, and no one else comes near. 
 
Not only has she been piling up awards, but she has fans all over the world. Her popularity comes from the joy and happiness the soft-spoken Los Angeles native brings. Now, after her stardom began as a 200 meters star, she winds up in the 400, the race she began to favor halfway through her career that began at the age of 18 right out of high school. 
 
Since turning pro out of high school, she’s been all about training and racing. Just trying to coax a little more speed out of lanky frame that earned her the nickname of “Chicken Legs”, she won gold in her signature event, the 200 meters, at the 2012 London Games, and that was one of 11 Olympic medals. She’s also earned plenty of hardware as part of relay teams, and is favored to help bring home another tonight after not qualifying in an individual event. 
 
“No matter” she said, “there’s nothing like standing on the line and knowing that you’re going to find out who’s the fastest on that day, and I think it will be us.” 
No doubt, she’s in G.O.A.T. territory — greatest of all time — and right up there with track royalty such as Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis, Jesse Owens, Michael Johnson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and the later Florence Griffith Joyner.
Said Joyner-Kersee: “We’ll miss her presence on the field, but her heart and soul will always be connected to the sport. That will never be forgotten.”
What Felix won’t miss is easy: Coach Kersee’s intense workouts. Just the other day, he put her through one final grueling training session. It included a 500-meter all-out sprint and she collapsed in exhaustion at the end.
Said Felix with a big smile after that, “I don’t care for anything where you have to pass the starting line,” were her words.
She always had the platform but was hesitant at times to use words because she didn’t want to ruffle feathers.
It was like she said, “I just felt like head down, this track is what I’m supposed to do.” 
 
Not anymore. Not since a complicated pregnancy when she dealt with preeclampsia C-section to deliver Camryn. 
 
She started the footwear company Saysh, which was created for women. In Toyko at the Olympics, she earned a bronze in the 400 while wearing spikes she envisioned. That bronze, for all it symbolized, meant just as much to her as gold. 
 
Not as slim now as her younger years when she looked like a coat hanger, she still has the same style, still has the same long stride, and one example of this came back in 2004 at the US championships 200 finals. Here, she strolled to the line looking like a kid stepping to the line, the rest of the field left strongly, huffing and puffing, left, right, left, right, racing around the turn for home, and down the straightaway, but Felix just ran her race looking straight ahead and crossing the finish without even leaning forward. 
 
Then she turned to congratulate each runner, run to where trainer Bob Kersee was, and take an added run past the lower stands. 
Looking ahead to her final times among competition, she made this a retirement fling to the likes of Rome, Poland, the Czech Republica, and checked in to meets run in the United States. She said it was her chance to finish up the way she began, on the oval.
 
“This is beautiful here,” she said during the week at the renovated, spruced-up venue in Eugene, where the world championship settled in for the first time in three years. “I also get a kick out of finishing up in the mixed 4 x 4, and wonder what leg the coaches place me in.” 
 
In the morning hours, it will be the hammer throw, the shot put, the pole vault, but the day begins with the women and men’s 20-Kilometer. World Track and Field officials were going to discontinue this event, but when a huge, angry dispute came from the actual walkers and coaches, the distance was lowered from 30 to 20ks. Also, it will be days of packed stands, but this event will be a freebie for those in attendance and others in the area. 
 
There will also be preliminaries in the 100 meters, but no finals on opening day. But the 4 x 400 mixed stick-pass will be a championship race that is scheduled to be among the first event for the night and can be viewed on the USA channel.
Flashing back to the time when she was only a shy 17-year-old sprinting prodigy with Olympic and world-championship glory still only a hopeful vision, the reason for her retirement is straightforward: She’s 36 now and simply didn’t have the same fire or speed with the finish line in sight.
“To be at the top,” she said, you have to have that hunger.”
That hunger now lies elsewhere. It’s with growing her company, with being a champion for women’s rights, with raising Camryn.
Felix recently took a photo with her daughter. Well, mom wore her racing outfit and Camryn a apropos shirt that simply read: “My mom is faster than your mom.”
You got it, not only is Felix still super proud of all the stuff that’s happened on the track, but she added that she thought her biggest accomplishments are the things that didn’t necessarily get a medal.
Soon, she will be just mom. Not a sprinter, not a sprinter-slash-mom. just mom. She likes the sound of it. And she’s looking forward to a much slower pace, like taking Camryn, who turns 4 on Nov. 28, to soccer practice.
If you notice, a thankful mom and thankful daughter, both born around Thanksgiving Day time.
 

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