“It felt like I lost everything” - Allyson Felix revisits her 2016 ankle injury that could have potentially jeopardized her Olympic career
Legendary sprinter Allyson Felix recently remembered the ankle injury in 2016 that put her career into question. After winning four gold medals in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, she set ambitious targets for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. However, injury appeared as a big threat to participation.
In late April in 2016, Felix injured her ankle during a gym session in Los Angeles. The American athlete was performing core work on a pull-up bar while holding a medicine ball between her feet. When coming down, she let the ball move aside. However, as she let herself drop down on the floor, her right ankle landed on the ball.
Felix’s ankle had swollen like never before. Although she was advised to undergo surgery, she opted for pool exercise to improve her condition. Finally, by late May, she was back to training.
Remembering that incident, Allyson Felix expressed in her recent docu-series, Starting Blocks, presented by health brand, AGI on YouTube,
“I tore all the ligaments in my ankle and I had really ambitious goals that year and things were going really well.. And so this injury was just. It felt like I lost everything.”
Due to her injury, Felix had to withdraw her name from the Doha Diamond League and the Prefontaine Classic, scheduled in May. Moreover, her coach, Bobby Kersee, did not comment on Felix’s possibility of competing at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in July.
They still hoped to compete in the 200m and 400m races in the trials with hopes to make it to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Also, that year, Allyson Felix’s Olympic goal was to pursue double victory in the 200m and 400m. It was last achieved by Michael Johnson at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Against all odds, Felix made it to Team US for the trials that was set to compete at the Olympics. Remembering the competition day, Felix expressed in her documentary,
"I think it became one of the moments of my career that I found myself in and was able to really be present in that."
Nevertheless, at the 2016 Olympics, she won two gold medals in the 4x100m and 4x400m relay races and also a silver medal in the 400m race.
Allyson Felix’s brother rescued her after she got injured on the race track in 2013
At the 2013 Moscow World Championships, Allyson Felix was competing in the women’s 200m race, when she suddenly tripped on the track. While running, she felt a strong piercing pain in her hamstring.
As Felix fell on the track, she was immediately surrounded by volunteers and medical staff. However, none of them could place her on the stretcher. Talking about the incident in an Instagram video last month, she stated,
"All the medical people started coming down. They bring down the stretcher. They can’t get the stretcher up and at this point, I just wanna disappear,”
Amidst the bustle, her brother Wes Felix came down to the track despite being a non-athlete. He lifted her sister in his arms and rescued her from the track. Remembering that moment, Allyson Felix said in the video that she needed her brother to rescue her and was grateful to him for always being with her.