Allyson Felix knows that being the most decorated track and field athlete ever is a designation that will likely stand for years.
Still, she’s seeking more and it goes beyond a simple symbolic victory lap.
And her approach has been calculated.
In April, Felix revealed that she planned to come out of retirement with sights on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, her hometown. She made the announcement in an article with Time that devised a formal pitch called “Project Six” last year that outlined her roadmap to making her sixth Olympic Games.
“So many of us have been told not to do the big, bold thing,” Felix said in the interview. “You know, at this age, I should probably be staying home and taking care of my kids, doing all that. And just, why not? Let’s flip it on its head. Let’s go after the thing. Let’s be vulnerable.”
Felix has little to prove as the holder of the most hardware in track, but saw the hype and extravagance of the 2028 Games as too big for her to simply watch from the sidelines as a spectator.
Bobby Kersee, who also coaches Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, has been drafted as the architect of her training reboot and Felix plans to ramp up her workouts in October with eyes on competition in 2027 so she can have a legit shot at making another U.S. national team. Under Kersee’s structure, Felix will not appear in any international meets like the Diamond League and it is unclear if she is targeting individual events, a relay spot or both.
Meanwhile, the ages of both Felix and Williams undoubtedly is a major factor in the belief of whether fans — and doubters — of both think either has a shot at recapturing their spark despite their exceptional success.
Williams is 44 and last competed in 2022 and Felix will be 42 by the start of the 2028 Olympics, something they are clearly aware of as the prospect of reaching back into both sports now is more than just a concept.
For Felix especially, making the Olympics could be especially daunting, since no American sprinter has ever reached the Games in their 40s.
“I know, at 40, I am not at my peak,” Felix said in her interview with Time in April. “I have no illusions about that. I’m very clear in what it is and what I want to see. And so I hope it’s seen that way.”
Tale of The Triumph
Felix began cracking the code at just 19 when the won her first world title in the women’s 200m in Helsinki in 2005 and over a 17-year career, she racked up a haul of 31 major global medals that include 21 gold, silver silver and three bronze — divided into 20 world championship medal and 11 in the Olympics.
She won gold in the women’s 200m at the 2021 London Olympics, three world title at the distance (2005, 2007 and 2009) and claimed the 400m crown in 2015 in Beijing. Felix was heavily instrumental in 19 world title relay squads and six Olympic relay teams.
Williams was dominant over 27 years professionally and won a staggering 23 Grand Slam singles titles — the most in the Open Era — as part of 73 WTA Tour–level singles victories. In the Olympics she won four gold medals, a solo title in 2012 and three doubles titles with sister Venus in 2000, 2008 and 2012.
Routinely serving as one of the faces of the sport throughout her career, Williams spent 319 weeks as the world No. 1 and was the year-end world No. 1 on five different occasions (2002, 2009, 2013, 2014. and 2015).
Tracking A Grand Slam Trajectory
For Williams, the confirmation came on Monday with a Nike ad posted on social media that showed her on a court reacting to a phone receiving multiple text messages alerts and phone calls as a title card read, “Guess everybody heard the news,” while the WTA solidified the news with its own post.
Speculation of Williams possibly staging a return grew on December 2 when she re-entered the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s registered testing pool for the first time since 2022. The move was widely reported and whispers of her inching back into the sport with a simple paperwork filing bubbled on social media.
But Williams took to her own post later that day to dash hopes that she would eventually find her way into the biggest matches on the circuit.
“Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy,” Williams said in a post that racked up over 2 million views.
Williams has not played an official match since losing a grueling three-set battle against Ajla Tomljanovic at the 2022 U.S. Open in the third round. She never used the word “retirement” to signal her career was over but labeled her time from tennis as “evolving away.”
Shortly after the U.S. Open loss, Williams submitted an exemption with the ITIA to no longer be part of its strict whereabouts protocol that’s similar to track and field’s Athletics Integrity Unit that keeps tabs on all athletes for possible drug testing. Under ITIA rules, Williams is now eligible for out-of-competition testing within the minimum six-month window before she can enter any event.
Last week, Williams reportedly requested a doubles wildcard to play alongside 19‑year‑old Victoria Mboko at the Queen’s Club in London, a WTA 500 event, which begins on June 8. Neither Williams nor Mboko were initially listed on the doubles draw for the tournament, which has 15 of its 16 groupings set but Mboko is confirmed for singles play.
But an answer to the roar of the same questioning of her return now comes in a week in London. And whether Williams uses the time on the court as a mere testing ground will be a bit more definitive than her January appearance on The Today Show when she was playfully evasive when asked about if she would ever play again.
“That’s not a yes or no. I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just gonna see what happens.”
Williams returns to a tennis universe that looks different than the one she left almost three years ago amid its own transition.
The women’s No. 1 ranking has tightly changed hands just eight times since August 2022 between Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina — with Sabalenka currently holding the top position. And a new crop of talents have firmly taken over as the stewards of the game even they likely won’t see anything close to her numerous triumphs.
For now, Williams is up first to exhibit what the first steps of the comeback trail look like for female athletes who have seen the heights that she, Felix and maybe a handful of others can claim.
The eyes of the tennis world, and beyond, will shift to London next week to see how Williams fares and it’s almost certain that Felix will also be watching with a personal stake — and rooting.
