However the 35-year-old is not only content material with excelling in her sport and desires to make use of her platform for social good.
The marketing campaign hopes to set off a nationwide dialog about well-being and enhance individuals’s consciousness of the issues in life that may have a detrimental affect on one’s well being.
“So transportation and air high quality and a few of these issues that you simply’re simply born into.
“It is actually about taking a holistic method to our well being and, you understand, determining how we spark conversations to create change for this.”
In November 2018, the American struggled with preeclampsia and had an emergency C-section at 32 weeks to ship her daughter.
“Clearly being an athlete and being wholesome, residing a wholesome way of life, I by no means anticipated to search out myself in that place,” she added.
“And so to be there and to be, you understand, so scared and actually not feeling like I used to be educated in regards to the circumstances, it is actually opened my eyes to type of the entire new world of well being.
“And actually not taking my very own well being with no consideration and actually wanting to boost consciousness round a few of these points.”
Discovering her voice
She says she felt compelled to talk out after the demise of George Floyd in 2020 and has continued to make use of her platform to combat for change.
“I feel it might probably get irritating typically, taking up a number of the identical points,” she mentioned, including that she was hopeful that she might proceed to make a distinction.
“However on the identical time, I really feel it is such a privilege to have the ability to communicate on behalf of others and to actually attempt to combat and to push for sure issues.
“It has been a course of to get up to now and I’ve actually grown and are available into my very own.
“I feel it was my very own private experiences that actually allowed me to say: ‘No, I would like to return ahead and I would like to talk on issues which can be affecting not solely myself, however different girls and different individuals inside my group.'”
Biles and Osaka
Whereas it took Felix till later in her profession to talk out, she says she’s been proud to look at youthful superstars take management of the general public narrative.
She is especially impressed by the likes of Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka, who each bucked the development by addressing their psychological well being struggles this yr.
In some ways, Tokyo 2020 will probably be remembered as a cornerstone for athletes talking brazenly in regards to the pressures of competitors and Felix says it is about time.
“I feel for a very long time, you understand, athletes have simply been seen as invincible, and we’re no totally different than anyone else and we undergo struggles and challenges,” she mentioned, earlier than explaining how she offers with the strain.
“I feel actually making it a precedence, making our psychological well being a precedence and understanding whenever you’re not OK and what are the steps and what works for you.
“I do know when I’ve to lean into my help system, once I must step away.
“Sort of what helps me to have the ability to thrive and taking that point and taking that area for myself.”
‘An actual illustration for ladies’
Felix, nonetheless, loved but extra Olympic success in Japan.
She added two medals to her haul — together with a gold within the girls’s 400m dash relay — however such success did not all the time look doubtless.
Along with the problems of returning to the game with a younger daughter, Felix was additionally compelled to adapt her coaching schedule, training on empty soccer fields and seashores through the preliminary phases of the pandemic in 2020.
Her husband, Kenneth Ferguson, took go away from his job at Chrysler and the household moved to Los Angeles from Michigan so Felix might practice along with her coach, Bob Kersee, forward of competitors.
Regardless of all of the sacrifice, Felix says it was value it.
“There have been so many wonderful moments, and I additionally felt like an actual illustration for ladies and for individuals who had been advised that their journeys and their tales have been over,” she mentioned about what will probably be her final Olympic Video games.
“And so I knew that I might have blended feelings. You understand, it has been part of my life for therefore lengthy, however on the identical time, there was a lot pleasure and achievement in these moments.”
