With a bronze medal in the women's 400-meter final, Allyson Felix won her 10th career Olympic medal to draw level with Carl Lewis for the most medals by a track and field athlete in U.S. history.
On Friday night in Tokyo, Felix put together the second-fastest race of her career in 49.46 seconds to win bronze. Felix takes sole possession of the title of most decorated female track and field athlete after breaking her tie with Merlene Ottey, who won nine medals for Jamaica in her career.
Felix, 35, still has a chance to surpass Lewis if she runs in the women's 4x400-meter relay final on Saturday.
“It’s something I felt I could accomplish," Felix said. "I feel like I have come a long way from all the other Games. This one is just different."
Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas defended her Olympic gold medal with a personal best of 48.36. She is just the second woman in history to win back-to-back gold medals in the 400 meters. Marie-Jose Perec won for France in 1992 and 1996. With her victory, Bahamas leaves the Tokyo Olympics with the men's and women's gold medals just a day after her compatriot Steven Gardiner won.
The Dominican Republic's Marleidy Paulino finished just behind her in a national record of 49.20 to capture silver.
For Felix, this was also the first Olympic medal she has won since giving birth to her daughter Camryn in 2018. In 2019, she spoke out against her former sponsor Nike for their lack of protection for athletes who decide to start a family, which led to a change in their policies for pay reductions and penalties for women who become pregnant. She later signed a sponsorship deal with Athleta and started her own footwear company called Saysh for women's lifestyle shoes and her own spikes.
“I’m not too wrapped up in winning more medals," Felix said after the race. "The biggest thing for me was coming back. Earlier today I looked through some of the videos again of things that we had taped when I was in the hospital with Cammy and on the comeback trail - those really, really hard moments - and that’s what I tried to tap into.”
She now owns six golds, three silvers and one bronze from the Olympics. In addition to her success at the Games, she also has 18 world championship medals, including 13 golds.
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