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an Olympian.” But as she grew into her
5-foot-6 frame, Felix honed her natural
competitive streak. As a 15-year-old at the
2001 national championships in Eugene,
Ore., she raced against Marion Jones, who
had just won gold in the Sydney 2000
Olympic Games. Felix lost. She returned to
the hotel and sobbed. “Do you realize this
is Marion Jones you are talking about?”
asked her mother, Marlean. “Why not just
run against the other high school run-
ners?” It was no use.
Felix turned pro in 2003, but that didn’t
stop her from enrolling at the University
of Southern California to pursue an
elementary education degree. Being a full-
time studentmeant flying to international
meets onweekends, writing papers on the
plane and pulling all-nighters, then going
to 8 a.m. practices before her first class. “It
was overwhelming,” Wes says. “She never
backed off her courseload, even during
world championship and Olympic years.”
Though Felix racked up world titles,
Olympic gold agonizingly slipped through
her fingers twice. As an 18-year-old in the
Athens 2004 Olympic Games, she finished
second. InBeijing, where shewas the favor-
ite coming off a personal-best 21.81-second
victory at the 2007 world championships,
she was beaten by Jamaica’s Veronica
Campbell-Brown. It was a crushing loss.
Even a er winning Olympic gold in the
400-meter relay, Felix says she would
trade all three world championship titles
for individual gold in the 200. “It is the one
missing piece,” she says. “It is the reason I
run every day.”
Despite her achievements, she remains
almost impossiblymodest. During a recent
appearance for the charity Right to Play,
she traveled to theMiddle East and talked
to Palestinian refugee girls. “Hey, I’mAlly-
son. I run track,” Wes recalls her saying. (A
spokesman for Right toPlay couldn’t resist
jumping in and saying, “Actually, she has
won 10 world championship medals and
three Olympic medals.”) While Felix hap-
pily talks to anyone who recognizes her,
she doesn’t flaunt her accomplishments.
“She is not one to say, ‘I ran a sub-22-second
200,’” says her best friend, Bri anyRicke s
Dixon. “She definitely exudes grace.”
Given Felix’s rare combination of cha-
risma and humility, BobbyKersee believes
she’s bound for lasting fame. “I tell all my
athletes to bemarketable, such that every
mominAmericawouldn’t be afraid for you
to babysit her kids,” he says. “If I needed a
babysi er, I’d call Allyson.”
AT THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES,
Felix will battle not only the fastest
women in the world, but also the percep-
tion that the sport she loves is dominated
by steroidal superhumans. As the doping
scandals have mounted in recent years,
Felix has been an outspoken critic of
steroid use, and she’s calling for frequent
testing in the hopes of winning back a
skeptical public. “It is a very pure sport,”
she says of sprinting. “Just two people
running against each other.”
In her quest for London gold, Felix
works out four to six hours a day, ingest-
ing 3,000 calories daily to keep weight
on her size 1 frame. To bulk up, she li s
regularly, once telling a reporter that she
had leg-pressed 700 pounds and dead-
li ed 245. It’s a brutal regimen. “I come
from the Vince Lombardi school of coach-
ing,” says Bobby Kersee, “but she gets it
done.” Besides, for all the rigor of Felix’s
routine, Kersee sees his job ultimately as
a simple one. “That stride of hers is God-
given,” he says. “My job is not to screw up
that stride.”
Pittsburgh writer and
Hemispheres
contribu-
tor
CRISTINA ROUVALIS
dreams of someday
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