When Femita Ayanbeku lined up for the 100 meters at the 2024 U.S. Track and Field Trials in July, she had one number in mind: 13.01 seconds. That time, she knew, would guarantee her a spot on the Paralympic team heading to Paris.
She ran faster in the past. In fact, three years ago, she set the American record of 12.84 seconds node T64 Classificationfor athletes with below-the-knee amputations who compete with a prosthesis. But at this year’s Trials, she was lining up just six months after giving birth to her daughter, Nailah.
The gun went off, and Ayanbeku pushed hard, crossing the finish line first. She waited, briefly, for the announcer to call her time. When she heard it—13.01 seconds sharp—she doubled over, crying with joy and relief.
“A lot of people thought I couldn’t do it,” Ayanbeku, 32, tells SELF. The tears kept flowing during her post-race TV broadcast. interviewespecially since her fiancé Dexter Bradley brought Nailah for her to hold. “But I got to do it — and have her there to see it.”
Now, Ayanbeku will head to her third Games to seek her first Paralympic medal. Here’s what you need to know about the superstar mom before she hits the track for the 100 meters in Paris. Watch her in action on September 5 for the first round, with the final on September 6.
1. She only started running at age 23.
Ayanbeku grew up outside Boston, in Randolph, Massachusetts, and didn’t consider herself particularly athletic as a child. When she was 11, she lost her right leg in a car accident; she was thrown from a speeding vehicle, and doctors had to amputate it to save her life. During her freshman year of high school, she tried to follow in her older sister’s footsteps and play basketball, but her prosthetic leg gave her blisters and she quit after a few months. “I played for about three months, and then I didn’t play again,” she says.
It wasn’t until 2015 that her prosthetist suggested she go to a running clinic through Challenged Athletes Foundationa non-profit organization dedicated to adaptive sports. There, she received an Össur brand running blade and met Jerome Singletona sprinter and three-time Paralympian. He saw something in her and introduced her to his coach, Sherman Hart, and the two agreed to start working together.
After a few competitions where she held her own against able-bodied athletes, Ayanbeku competed in the 2016 U.S. Paralympic Team Trials for Track and Field. She recorded a time of 13.44 seconds to win the 100 meters and come second in the 200 meters in 28.41 seconds. This earned him a spot at the Rio Paralympic Games, where he finished 12th in the 100 meters and sixth in the 200 meters.
Then she returned to her alma mater — American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts — for the homecoming dance. “The track coach said, ‘Why didn’t you run for us when you were here?’” Ayanbeku says. “I said, ‘I didn’t even know you could run!’ It was definitely a surprise to everyone, including me.”
2. She won a national championship while she was pregnant.
Since then, Ayanbeku has won seven more national championships. titles. Although she didn’t know it at the time, Nailah had been with her for the last few months. When she counted back later, Ayanbeku realized she was about three weeks pregnant when she won the T64 100 meters at the 2023 USA Para Track and Field National Championships in May 2023.