Allyson Felix after winning the 200m at the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki (© Getty Images)
It was on a bright Friday evening at Crystal Palace, London in July 2005 that Allyson Felix struck the psychological blow that was to ease the path to her maiden global title – the first of her record haul of 20 medals from the World Athletics Championships.
At 19, the Los Angelean was already a veteran of three global senior championships.
A 200m semi-finalist at the world indoor and outdoor championships in 2003, she had stepped up to podium status at the Athens Olympics in 2004, taking silver in the half-lap event behind the victorious Veronica Campbell.
The gap in the Greek capital was 0.13 seconds and the US sprint prodigy was still playing catch up when she lined up for a rematch with the seemingly imperious Jamaican at the London Grand Prix at the grand old Crystal Palace track.
Two weeks out from the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki, Campbell was unbeaten in a 200m race since March 2000 – not quite as prolonged a span of invincibility as the nine years, nine months and 122 races in which Ed Moses was untouchable in the 400m hurdles, but halfway towards it, at five years, four months and 42 races.
Felix, still in her debut season on the European summer circuit, controlled the race from the start, pulling away smoothly from the 23-year-old Campbell down the home straight to win comfortably in a wind-assisted 22.16.
Allyson Felix wins the 200m at the 2005 London Grand Prix (© AFP / Getty Images)
As in Athens, the margin was again 0.13 – this time in favour of the Californian known by her classmates as ‘chicken legs’.
Not that Felix was counting her metaphorical chickens in the aftermath of a potential tipping point triumph.
“Of course it’s important,” she said of her emphatic turning of the tables on the Olympic champion, “but this is not the main race. It is all building up to the World Championships.”
While aficionados of track and field were forecasting a first sprint success by a teenager at a World Championships, Felix was striving to keep her feet on the ground as she headed to Helsinki.
“I still think Veronica Campbell is the woman to beat,” she insisted, upon arrival in the Finnish capital. “I think she’s going to be stepping up her game here.
“Psychologically, I don’t think beating her at Crystal Palace was really that important. Anything can happen here.
“I have to go out there when it comes to the rounds and just be competitive and not think it’s a sure thing. That’s how I go into every race.”
The daughter of an ordained minister, Felix was encouraged from an early age to keep her running life in keen perspective.
Campbell, it seemed, was trying to convince herself that she was still the woman to beat.
“I’ve seen it as a wake-up call,” she said, when questioned about her Crystal Palace defeat. “I’ve taken it as a positive rather than a negative.”
As it happened, neither woman managed the positive of a victory in the opening round.
Campbell finished second in her heat, 0.39 down on Christine Arron, the 1998 European 100m champion from France. Felix was second in her heat, 0.15 behind Russia’s Yuliya Gushchina.
The pair were drawn together in the second semi-final the following day, the track in the Olympic Stadium thoroughly sodden from one of the almighty downpours that put such a dampener on those championships.
Campbell got off to a strong start, leading into the home straight from lane three, but Felix – two lanes outside her – eased clear in the final 50 metres, prevailing in 22.90 into a -4.0m/s headwind, with Belgium’s Kim Gevaert coming through for second in 22.97 and the Jamaican third in 23.02.
Arron won the other semi in 22.45 (-2.7m/s) and the 31-year-old Frenchwoman was drawn in lane five in the final, with Felix in six and Campbell in seven.
Felix maintained her composure as Campbell and Arron powered around the turn ahead of her. Her smooth form cut a stark contrast with the rocking and rolling of her rivals.
Veronica Campbell, Allyson Felix and Christine Arron in the 200m in Helsinki (© Getty Images)
Halfway down the home straight, the teenager eased past the overstriding Campbell. Then, 25 metres from the line, she overtook the straining figure of Arron.
Crossing the line in 22.16, at 19 years 267 days, Felix entered the record books as the first teenager to claim a world sprint crown, her US teammate Rachelle Smith claiming silver in 22.31, the same time as the tiring Arron in third. Campbell faded out of the medals, finishing fourth in 22.38.
Felix’s winning spikes, donated by the champion, are among the exhibits permanently on display in the Museum of World Athletics (MOWA) online 3D platform and currently can also be seen in the MOWA Heritage Athletics Exhibition in Tokyo until 21 September.
The history-maker Felix attributed her success in Helsinki to the over-distance work she had been performing under the direction of her coach, Bobby Kersee.
“Working with Bobby, we do a lot of 600m repeats, so I feel a lot stronger and have more confidence in my strength,” she said. “I expected to be down coming off the curve, so I didn’t panic.”
Thus, 20 years ago today, on 12 August 2005, the phenomenal Felix had her first senior global title – and the first of her record haul of 20 medals from World Athletics Championships.
She won the 200m again in Osaka in 2007 and in Berlin in 2009, plus the 400m in Beijing in 2015, a decade after her Helsinki breakthrough.
Fittingly, the stunning tally was completed on home ground in Oregon in 2022, with bronze from the mixed 4x400m and gold in the women’s 4x400m.
In the course of an international career that spanned 22 years, the ever graceful, self-effacing Felix also claimed 11 Olympic medals, a record for a woman in track and field, including 200m gold in London in 2012.
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics Heritage
