Olympic Legend Allyson Felix At 40 Is Chasing LA28

Allyson Felix has already won 11 Olympic medals. Now the Los Angeles native is attempting the most improbable race of her career: making the U.S. Olympic team at 42 and competing at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

On September 17, 2026, Allyson Felix stood inside OMEGA’s new boutique at The Americana at Brand in Glendale, California, wearing an OMEGA Speedmaster 38mm as she celebrated the opening as one of the Swiss watchmaker’s ambassadors.

The setting was more than a luxury retail opening.

It was a reminder of the relationship between Felix, the concept of time and the Olympic Games.

Timing Olympians Since 1932

OMEGA has been the Official Timekeeper of the Olympic Games since 1932, when the International Olympic Committee selected the Swiss company to provide the timing equipment for the Los Angeles Games. It was the first time a single company had been given responsibility for timing all of the Olympic events.

OMEGA’s Olympic story has now stretched across more than nine decades, from mechanical stopwatches at the 1932 Los Angeles Games to sophisticated electronic timing, photo-finish technology and real-time data used to measure today’s Olympic competitions. The company has been the Official Timekeeper of the Paralympic Games since 1992.

Now OMEGA is preparing to return to Los Angeles for LA28.

So is Felix.

And that makes the opening of an OMEGA store in Glendale an almost perfect setting for one of the most intriguing comeback stories in sports.

Because Allyson Felix has spent her entire career racing against time.

A Secret Plan Called Project Six

There is an image Allyson Felix can already see in her mind. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Olympic track. Her children are somewhere in the stadium. She is walking toward the starting line. It is a picture that would have seemed impossible only a few years ago.

Felix retired from elite track and field after the Tokyo Olympics, having accumulated 11 Olympic medals—seven of them gold—across five Olympic Games. She became the most decorated woman in Olympic track and field history.

She had done enough. Then Los Angeles called. And at 40, Felix is coming back. Her objective is extraordinary: make the U.S. Olympic team for a sixth time and compete at the 2028 Olympic Games in the city where she was born and raised.

She will be 42. There are no guarantees.

And that, Felix says, is part of the point. In a recent interview, she described her comeback as an opportunity to explore “what’s possible” rather than an attempt simply to recreate the athlete she was. The idea began quietly.In 2025, Felix approached her brother and longtime business partner, Wes Felix, with a presentation.

The title was Project Six.

The number referred to a sixth Olympic Games. According to TIME, Felix had been thinking about the possibility for roughly a year. The idea wasn’t to run a few races for nostalgia. She wanted to see whether she could actually make an Olympic team again.

Her pitch reportedly described the project as a “live experiment in human potential.”

Felix has competed at the Olympic Games in Athens, Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo. But she has never competed at an Olympics in her hometown. Los Angeles hosted the Games in 1932 and 1984. In 2028 the Olympics will return and Felix wants to be on the track.

Motherhood

To understand why this comeback means more than another Olympic appearance, it helps to understand what happened after Felix became a mother.

In November 2018, Felix gave birth to her daughter, Camryn, after developing severe preeclampsia and undergoing an emergency C-section at 32 weeks.

Her pregnancy also became the catalyst for one of the most consequential chapters of her career away from the track. Felix publicly challenged Nike over its treatment of pregnant athletes, writing about her concerns after becoming a mother. She said the company wanted to reduce her compensation substantially after childbirth.

The ensuing public discussion contributed to changes in Nike’s maternity policy. In 2019, Nike announced that it would not apply performance-related reductions to athletes’ contracts for 18 months surrounding pregnancy. Felix had discovered something important. She could use her voice to change the sport for women who would come after her.

And she did.

Felix became a mother for the second time in 2024, welcoming her son, Kenneth “Trey” Ferguson III. Now she is attempting an Olympic comeback while raising two children. Recovery is different. Her body is different. Life is different. She has spoken openly about the physical demands of training again and about the aches that come with it.

From Champion To Advocate

Felix’s influence expanded well beyond competition.

She became an advocate for maternal health and gender equity, while continuing to build businesses and leadership roles within sports. She and Wes Felix founded Saysh, a women’s footwear company. In 2024, she co-founded Always Alpha, a sports management and advisory company focused on women athletes. Felix also became an International Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission member and continued serving in leadership roles within the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movement.

Her athletic career had become something larger.

She was no longer simply asking: How fast can I run? She was asking what can I change?

It’s Not About The Medals

Felix isn’t coming back because she needs another medal to validate her career. She has described the comeback as an opportunity to challenge herself and to experience something she would otherwise always wonder about.

As she shared at the Omega event: “It all started with me being deeply curious. So, I started to do some track workouts again. I hadn’t in a while, and I was starting to just move my body and move around. My husband was trying running and I was running with him and kind of looking at the times, and you know, they were getting better. They were improving.

And then I had this thought: I wonder if at this age, would there be any chance that I could make the team. And it was kind of like I thought of it, and I thought, ‘oh that will probably pass’. But it was just like this thing that kept coming back to me. And it was like ‘huh.’ And then I did a deep dive. I started to think about all of the athletes that competed at an older age, in different sports. And I wanted to know, ‘why?’

I’m 40 years old, I understand that. I’m trying to build something new and see what is possible at this stage in life.”

The Most Important Audience

Recently Felix explained that one of the motivations behind the comeback is allowing her children to watch her pursue a major goal without knowing how it will turn out. That may be the most powerful lesson of Project Six.

Her children won’t simply see their mother win. They may see her struggle. They may see races that don’t go according to plan. They may see disappointment. Regardless they will also see her continue. Felix wants her children to understand that it is possible to be scared and uncertain and still pursue something difficult.¹⁴

For most of Felix’s career, success was measured in medals.

Now she is measuring it in the courage to attempt something whose outcome is very uncertain.

The Coliseum Awaits

Felix became an Olympic silver medalist at 18. Then came five Olympic Games. Eleven medals. Seven golds. World championships. Records. And then, eventually retirement.

But Felix has described LA28 as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the Olympic Games in her hometown. She will be in Los Angeles regardless of whether she is competing. As she recently put it, she wants to be there with her children whether she is competing or cheering on Team USA.

If Felix reaches the 2028 Olympic starting line, it will be one of the great full-circle moments in American Olympic sport. It will be about an athlete who decided that retirement did not necessarily have to be final. At 40, Allyson Felix is running toward something she cannot guarantee.

The Olympics have always been about more than the medals. Sometimes they are about seeing how far a person can go after everyone assumes the race is over.

For Felix, the finish line alone no longer defines success.