Allyson Felix retired from track and field in 2022, earning 11 Olympic medals and 20 World Championship medals. She is the most decorated track and field athlete in Olympic history, but she made headlines prior to her retirement when she became a mother and explained why she decided to hide her pregnancy originally.
“I always knew I wanted to become a mother at some point, and I also had this career I loved,” Felix said on the Wednesday, February 25, episode of Woman’s World’s What Matters With Liz series. “It was a physical career, and I wasn’t sure when that would happen. I also saw a lot of friends, colleagues and teammates struggle through motherhood as athletes. I thought if I accomplished enough, maybe, I wouldn’t face those same challenges.”
Felix married Kenneth Ferguson in 2021 and welcomed their daughter Camryn in 2018 and their son Kenneth Maurice Ferguson III in 2024.
She continued, “I waited until I had accomplished a lot. I was a six-time gold medalist. I felt like I was in a really good place to take this on. … I felt like, ‘OK, this is a good time.’ But as I was thinking about pursuing that, I was also renegotiating my contract with Nike, who I’d been with for almost a decade. It started off very rocky. The original offer they gave me was 70% less than what I was previously making.”
Felix began to wonder that aging was a factor as this new generation of young athletes being ushered in on why she received a low sponsorship offer from Nike.
“I think they felt I was older,” Felix added. “There was a new crop of younger athletes coming up. That’s where it began. I already had this fear of what could happen, and then I got that offer. So, I did what a lot of my friends had done before me: Once I became pregnant, while still going through this really difficult renegotiation, I hid my pregnancy.”
Hiding her pregnancy was not something that she seemingly wanted to do rather she explained that contracts in track and field are “performance-based.” If you are not able to perform at a certain caliber it would affect how you were compensated.
“In track and field, our contracts are performance-based,” she explained. “You go to the Olympics, you go to Worlds, you get a bonus, but if you don’t, you face reductions. If you’re not performing, you face really aggressive reductions. If you’re pregnant or have just had a baby, there’s nothing in place to protect you.”
She took her experience as a way to champion for the next generation in a conversation with The New York Times back in 2019.
“The sense that I couldn’t let my daughter and her generation face this … was a stronger pull [than staying quiet],” she recalled. “And we should say, because of what you did, Nike changed their policies. There are now maternal protections for athletes. To see the culture shift [and] to see female athletes understand that it’s their choice now, that they can have children and still be at the peak of their careers, that’s what it’s about. Not feeling forced to choose.”
