Tokyo 2020 - A fighter on and off the track: Allyson Felix is on the brink of history at her fifth Olympic Games

Tokyo 2020 marks five Olympic Games for the remarkable Allyson Felix, a true athletics great on the brink of history 17 years on from her Olympic debut.

The precocious strider who made headlines at 17 after signing her first professional contract with Adidas who has gone on to become one of athletics' best loved, and most influential, elder stateswomen.

It is worth reflecting on the career of one of the most successful runners of all time as she strides around an Olympics track for what could be the final time. In 2004 the then 18-year-old Felix smashed the world junior record in the final of the women's 200 metres in Athens to take an historic silver medal. Less than a year later and she was the youngest female 200m world champion in history, victory in Helsinki a first of 13 world titles that have followed.

The 35-year-old ranks as perhaps the finest female relay runner of all-time, a mainstay of dominant American units both in the 4x100m and the 4x400m. Of the 25 fastest quartets in the latter, seven have included Felix; at the last two Olympics America ran the two fastest sprint relays in history, with Felix on the second leg.

She departed for Tokyo with a chance at making history, six golds and three silvers having already been draped around her neck. One more medal would take Felix level with the great Carl Lewis as America's most successful Olympic athlete. Add gold, silver or bronze in both the individual event and the 4x400m relay - from the heats of which Felix was rested - and she would move past him.

That would take her into rarefied air. Only extraordinary distance runner Paavo Nurmi, born in what was then the Grand Duchy of Finland of the Russian Empire, would have more Olympic medals (12) in athletics.

Her first attempt at history comes on Friday 6 August, Felix safely through to the final of the individual 400 metres with the gun set to fire at 1.35pm BST. One day later and Felix should be back on the track as part of the latest iteration of a gold medal favourite relay quartet, though the veteran was rested as the USA progressed fastest into the 4x400m final.

Win or lose in her final two races at the Olympic Stadium, simply making it to Tokyo 2020 is among Felix's greatest achievements.

After Rio 2016, Felix collected two golds and a bronze at the 2017 World Championships in London, doubling up in both relays, before taking a break from athletics to become a mother.

In 2018, Felix had her first child, a daughter named Camryn, with former sprinter and hurdler Kenneth Ferguson. It was not a smooth birth, her baby delivered by emergency C-section having been told by doctors that either she or Camryn would not otherwise survive. Felix would later detail how she was unable to walk afterwards, Camryn spent a month in a neonatal unit having been born premature at just 3lbs 8ozs.

Remarkably, less than a year later and Felix was back in global competition in the Qatar heat, and back winning world championship medals, taking her 12th and 13th gold medals in Doha.

“Society tells us that you have a child, and your best moments are behind you but that’s absolutely not the case,” Felix has said. “I’m a representation of that.”

Others did not agree. Felix's partnership with sportswear giants Nike had come to an end in December 2017 after seven years together. After the trauma of childbirth, Nike offered her a 70 percent pay cut, and could not guarantee that she would not be punished for under-performing in the months following her pregnancy.

"What I’m not willing to accept is the enduring status quo around maternity," wrote Felix in a damning op-ed the New York Times. "I asked Nike to contractually guarantee that I wouldn’t be punished if I didn’t perform at my best in the months surrounding childbirth.

"I wanted to set a new standard. If I, one of Nike’s most widely marketed athletes, couldn’t secure these protections, who could? Nike declined. We’ve been at a standstill ever since."

It was to be just the start of Felix's off-field work. After her troubles with pre-eclampsia at the end of her pregnancy, Felix has become a prominent speaker on racial disparities in maternal care, testifying to the US House Ways and Means Committe on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. in May 2019.

After her article in the New York Times was published, Nike announced an amended maternity policy that guaranteed bonuses and pay for athletes for 18 months surrounding their pregnancy.

Felix for once starts as an outsider in the women's 400 metres. She finished second behind Quanera Hayes, also a mother, at the US Olympic Trials earlier in the year, and of those to make the final in Tokyo only Great Britain's Jodie Williams had a slower time. Defending champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo looks strong; Stephenie Ann McPherson, Marileidy Paulino, Candice McLeod and Roxana Gomez have never run faster.

But Felix may be peaking at just the right time. Her 49.89s run to finish second in the third semi-final was her fastest time since giving birth three years ago - at 35, it lowered the women's masters record she had gained at the Olympic Trials.

However Felix will settle in her blocks with the confidence earned by her success and motivated by all that has come before, just one lap of the Tokyo track from history.

"It was a fight to get here," Felix said after qualifying for the final.

"There are a lot of moments when I was doubtful that I would be able to feel like myself again," Felix told reporters. "Hopefully, a lot of mothers will see themselves in me. I just want to be that inspiration."

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