VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Olympic Star Allyson Felix Calls Motherhood ‘My Biggest Accomplishment’

Track and field star Allyson Felix reflected on what it means to be an Olympian and a mother in a new video.

“Being Cammy’s mom is the number one job that I have,” Felix said during a Team USA media summit. “It’s my biggest accomplishment.”

“It’s amazing, it’s been also really challenging, you know, trying to figure out how to do both at the same time,” Felix said. “But I’ll be able to look back and tell her about this journey, you know, and this journey that she’s been on as well. It hasn’t been an easy one, there’s been a lot of fights, a lot of challenges along the way, but she has been the driving force to be able to get through that. And she’s really helped me find my voice and allowed me to do things bigger than you know wanting to run fast. So I’m just so grateful you know for the blessing that she is and excited you know as we get closer for her to experience all this.”

Felix said she’s “not completely clear” whether Camryn, 2, will be able to experience her mother’s Olympic competition in real life in Tokyo.

“Information has kind of been trickling in,” Felix explained, “and I guess for me I’ve just been trying to prepare for that, you know, when you kind of dream of the situation and if I’m fortunate enough to make this fifth Olympic team, the driving force has been this idea that Cammy would be there, and that I imagine seeing her at the track and all of that, but obviously no one knew a pandemic would be coming.”

Though, of course, Felix wants to see her daughter in the stands, she urged Olympic organizers to focus on mothers of newborns. “I would be most sensitive to moms who are breast feeding, new moms, moms with you know very small babies, I know how crucial that is,” she said. “I know for me, when I competed when Cammy was under a year old, you need to be near your child.”