Felix, 33, was part of Team USA’s mixed-gender 4x400m relay team that won the gold at the World Championships Sunday.
The win gave Felix her 12th gold medal at the world championships, pushing her past Bolt’s record for the most gold medals of any athlete at the track and field World Championships.
Felix’s daughter, Camryn, was born last November via emergency C-section at 32 weeks.
The track star had to undergo a C-section “because of severe pre-eclampsia that threatened the lives of me and my baby,” she wrote in the New York Times.
Felix returned to competitive racing in July, eight months after giving birth, and has fought ever since to help pave the road for other professional athletes and moms.
She was part of a group of female track stars who alleged they were penalized by Nike for being pregnant. After the women spoke out, the company said it would do more to protect female athletes’ pay during and after pregnancy.
“I think everything I went through this year … it just brings it all back that it’s so much bigger than myself,” Felix, who went on to become the first sponsored athlete for Athleta, at the world championships in Doha, Qatar.
Felix was not the only mom to win at the world championships.
Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce celebrated her win in the 100-meter race with her 2-year-old son and called it a “victory for motherhood.”
Fraser-Pryce told ESPN she sat on her bed and cried when she found out she was pregnant, but said of her decision to keep competing, “I knew how I felt and I knew I wasn’t ready to go. I had something left to do, and I stayed focused on the goal.”
