Allyson Felix arrived at the 2012 London Olympics carrying the weight of expectation and a quiet storm of doubt. Even before stepping onto the track, she questioned her purpose, asking, “Am I going to keep doing this?… Where is there space to grow?” The uncertainty traced back to Beijing 2008, where a silver in the 200 meters felt like she had fallen short, a feeling that lingered and resurfaced through the 2016 and 2021 Olympics in different forms. Now, as she looks ahead to Los Angeles 2028, her perspective has shifted.

After stepping away from competition in 2022 and later returning in 2026, Felix, now an 11-time Olympic medalist, opened up about this mindset shift on the ‘Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky’ podcast. When questioned about finding her way back after years of winning, she said she did not know how to handle it early in her career.

“I didn’t know how to do it,” she said. “I think what I did early on, I completely tied my worth and my value into the results of my races. And so… when I was going through those moments where it felt like failure, and I’m embarrassed and all of these things, I was not feeling great, you know, it was (0:33) really challenging, and it would be, I would go to some dark places and not know how to handle it.”

That emotional weight can be seen across her career. In Athens 2004, she came in as a rising teenager and won silver in the 200m. Then again, in Beijing 2008, she entered as the clear favourite after years of dominance, but again finished second after Veronica Campbell-Brown pulled away in the final stretch.

It had been a four-year journey, and in a matter of seconds, she was left to deal with heartbreak. After the games,  she cried in the stands as her family consoled her and said, “I felt prepared. I felt ready. It just wasn’t there today. Deja vu, and not in a good way.”

A similar pain occurred in Rio 2016, when Felix was on the edge of Olympic gold in the 400m final before Shaunae Miller-Uibo dove at the line to beat her by seven-hundredths of a second. Felix was left emotionally and physically drained, later calling it “deeply disappointing,” again showing how tightly she once linked her self-worth to results. But over time, that connection started to shift.

“As I got older, I was able to separate the two. And to say, you know, I might have a terrible race, but like I still have value,” she shared with Monica Lewinsky. Her voice was breaking, and her eyes were tearing up as she spoke about it even years later. “I’m still enough. I’m still, you know, worth it and all of those things.”

Her final Olympic appearance came at Tokyo 2020, held in 2021. It was her fifth Games, where she won bronze in the 400m and gold in the 4x400m relay. Even at that stage of her career, she was honest about fear still being part of competition, not fear of opponents, but fear of something deeper. “I’m afraid of letting people down. Of letting myself down… I’ve been afraid that my worth is tied to whether or not I win or lose… But.. I’ve decided to leave that fear behind. To understand that I am enough.”

That shift did not happen by accident. Felix pointed to the people around her who helped her step out of that mindset, especially when outside noise and pressure became overwhelming.

“I feel like there’s a lot of noise, and you start to doubt yourself, and you start to really believe some of that noise. But if I could turn to the people I actually respect and trust, and they could… build me up and tell the truth, then I could keep going. And then I found purpose more than just the performance. And I think that is truly when I was able to come back to myself and say, I’m here for more than just to run fast.”

But that family support wasn’t just brushed aside when she retired from racing in 2022 either, as Felix found other projects and business interests to enjoy, spending more time with her family than on the race track. It was a full circle moment after being the one under the spotlight for years that she returned to the Olympic stage in 2024 as a spectator, accompanying her family to the Paris Games and being able to watch the Olympic stars like Simone Biles.

Now, as she looks toward LA 2028, her focus feels different. But why is she coming back for the LA 28 Olympics?

Allyson Felix and the question that pulled her back

Allyson Felix has already done everything the sport could offer. She is an 11-time Olympic medalist, more than Carl Lewis and even more than Usain Bolt. Even in 2022, at 36, she stepped away from competition after a career that stretched nearly two decades at the very top. But it wasn’t a clean break when they left.

Felix has spoken about what came after retirement, “There was this sense of loss and grief of leaving something that I did for almost 20 years and loved,” she told NBC News. “And then a lot of identity work around, who am I without track and field? I worked through a lot of that.”

Over time, that question did not fully go away. In 2025, Felix was training with her husband, Kenny Ferguson. It started casually, just workouts and conversations around speed and times. But something shifted when she began thinking about the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, her hometown.

“It kept coming back to me: I wonder if I would be able to qualify?” she said. “Then I started moving around more, doing workouts, and I was like, huh. This might actually be possible.”

After a couple of weeks, she officially announced her comeback. She has been slowly striving to progress towards achieving competitive success in 2027 and maybe even securing a spot on the U.S. relay team for LA 2028. If she makes it, she will be 42.

But this return feels different from everything that came before. In an interview with NBC News, Felix said she had reached “a place of peace” with her identity after retirement. She was clear that this is not about ego or adding more medals to her collection. Instead, it is about curiosity and perspective. “I have this desire and this question in my head, and I want to explore it,” she said. “What is possible at this age?”

Felix, now a mother of two, sees this chapter as something more than sport alone. Now, it’s time to see how far this will take her when the LA2028 games come around!