Los Angeles (AFP) – Six-time Olympic athletics champion Allyson Felix revealed Thursday she has given birth to a baby daughter who was born prematurely and only after an emergency C-section operation.
Felix gave birth to daughter Camryn on November 28 after only 32 weeks when emergency surgery was performed on the 33-year-old American due to complications.
Both mother and baby are doing fine, although the infant will spend more time in an intensive care unit before going home with Felix and her husband Kenneth.
“I’m trying to be open to what God has in store for me and my family,” Felix said in a posting on the US Olympic team website. “I still feel nervous and vulnerable. But I also feel brave and excited.
“Every day I sit with my daughter in the (intensive care unit) and watch her fight. Every day she gets stronger and more beautiful.”
Felix, looking to a fifth Olympics appearance at Tokyo in 2020, is the only woman to win six Olympic gold medals in track and field and is level with Jamaican Merlene Ottey as the most decorated woman in athletics history with nine overall medals.
Felix won silver medals at 200 meters in 2004 at Athens and 2008 at Beijing before taking gold in the event at London in 2012 then grabbed silver at 400m in 2016 at Rio.
She was also a member of US gold medal 4×400 relays in 2008, 2012 and 2016 as well as 4×100 relay champions at the past two Olympics.
Felix is an 11-time world champion and her 16 podium finishes overall at the worlds make her the most decorated man or woman in the history of the world championships.