Allyson Felix

In 2003, the two high school athletes that Gatorade had selected as their athletes of the year were so far above their peers in terms of sheer ability, that they would both turn professional immediately out of high school and skip collegiate competition all together. One of them was LeBron James. The other was Allyson Felix.

Felix had always demonstrated a natural ability for sprinting that separated her from her peers. When she first joined the track team at Los Angeles Baptist High School (following in the footsteps of her older brother, Wes, a successful sprinter) and was timed in a 60m dash, her coach remeasured the distance because the time seemed too quick to be true. This disbelief was soon answered as Felix would quickly establish herself as one of the hottest sprint talents that nation had ever seen. During her sophomore year in high school, she won the World Youth title over 100m and captured California state track titles at both 100m and 200m.

By her senior year of high school, Felix had already established herself as one of the top 200m runners in the US. She qualified for both the IAAF World Indoor and Outdoor championships, making it as far as the semi-finals in both. Having shown such world-class ability at a young age, Felix decided to forgo an athletic scholarship at the University of Southern California and sign a deal with adidas to become the first American high school track athlete to turn professional directly out of high school.

In her first year as a professional, Felix was nearly perfect. She completed the rare double of winning both the US Junior Championships and the US Olympic Trials, and went on to capture the silver medal at the Athens Olympics, setting the World Junior Record in the process. While 2004 had been nearly perfect, 2005 and 2007 were both flawless. In both years, Felix went undefeated over 200m and captured the gold medal at both the 2005 and 2007 World Championships, the latter of which in a phenomenal 21.81 sec. She also used 2007 to show her prowess as an all-around sprinter, dipping under 50 seconds for the first time over 400m, and winning gold medals on both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays at the World Championships. It’s a winning record that Felix hopes to continue this summer in Beijing.