Olympic Champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo Faces Big Career Setback Right Before Tokyo World Championships

Shaunae Miller-Uibo once circled June 2025 on her calendar as the moment she would quietly step back into competition. After nursing a hamstring injury from the Paris Olympics and balancing the demands of new motherhood, the Bahamian sprinter planned a cautious return. Her father and coach spoke of “a very soft meet — just to see where she is.” That modest beginning carried the weight of anticipation, for the two-time Olympic champion had not lined up in a major race since her Tokyo triumph in 2021.

By August, Miller-Uibo’s comeback was visible on the track. At the Bahamas National Trials, she finished second in 51.41 seconds, her quickest performance since giving birth. Ten days later, she was listed among the names at the NACAC Championships in Freeport, joining compatriot Steven Gardiner and Canada’s Jerome Blake. The meet served as preparation for the Tokyo World Championships, where many athletes finalized their form. For Miller-Uibo, however, each appearance functioned less as a buildup to global competition than as a test of whether she could reclaim her old standard.

That longstanding standard had defined her for nearly a decade and a half. Miller-Uibo first appeared on the World Championships stage in 2011 at just 17. Since then, she has never missed the event, carving out a resume that includes silver medals in the 400 meters in 2015 and 2019, a bronze in the 200 meters in 2017, and double gold in 2022 when she captured both the indoor and outdoor 400 titles. She also set continental records of 48.36 outdoors and 50.21 indoors, times that remain etched among the world’s all-time leaders. To that body of work, she added two Olympic crowns, in Rio and Tokyo, where she mastered the one-lap race. The consistency was such that her presence at every World Championships became an assumption. Yet in 2025, after 14 years, the assumption dissolved.

Her final effort to qualify came at the Guatemalan Championships in Quetzaltenango. Needing 50.75 seconds to secure the standard, she produced 51.27. It was her season’s best, but it left her short. The Bahamas named a 12-member squad for Tokyo without her. For the first time since she was a teenager, Miller-Uibo would not take part in the global meet. The loss of her streak owed not to a decline in spirit but to the realities of recovery. She had undergone knee surgery, torn her hamstring, and given birth within the span of two years. Track and field analyst Anderson Emerole had already recognized her persistence when he wrote on X in August 2024, “A huge shout out to Shaunae Miller-Uibo! This year she had knee surgery and a hamstring tear, but still gave it her all in an attempt to defend her Olympic 400m Gold. Despite not making it through the rounds, she is solidified as one of the greatest 400m runners in history.”

Her 2025 campaign will be remembered not for medals but for its symbolism. She reached 51.41 in Nassau, 51.27 in Quetzaltenango, and reminded observers of the immense work required to bridge the margin between recovery and world-class form. In doing so, she closed a chapter that stretched across 14 uninterrupted years of World Championship participation. The statistics underscore the rarity of her absence, but the story rests on endurance. Even in missing the standard, Miller-Uibo carried forward the impression of an athlete who spent nearly half her life competing among the very best, and who continues to measure herself against that same demanding level. Even when she embraced motherhood, she did not step back from the tracks. Miller-Uibo stunned the athletics world by racing at the 2023 World Championships only four months after giving birth.

Shaunae Miller-Uibo’s remarkable return to racing just four months after childbirth

When Shaunae Miller-Uibo announced her pregnancy in February 2023, the prevailing belief was that her absence would rule her out of any defense of her 400m title in Budapest. Few anticipated that the Olympic champion, balancing recovery with new motherhood, would even contemplate competition at that stage. Yet, just four months after giving birth, she returned to the World Athletics Championships, determined to test herself once again against the clock.

Her reappearance on the track came as a surprise to many, but her performance carried a sense of quiet triumph. Recording the season’s best of 52.65 seconds in her first 400m since August 2022, Miller-Uibo described the experience with unmistakable joy. She shared, “I’m having so much fun to be back on the track. It felt so good. It’s been so exciting. I have missed it so much.” That sentiment underscored not only her competitive drive but also the profound relief of reclaiming her place in the sport so soon after childbirth.

The path to that moment had been cautious and deliberate. She spoke candidly about the challenges, acknowledging that “childbirth is pretty hard on the body” and that her team advanced carefully until her strength returned at the “very last minute.” The fact that she had managed to line up on the starting blocks just weeks after contesting five events at the Bahamian national championships was itself a marker of her resilience.

For Miller-Uibo, the Budapest race symbolized more than a time on the board. It stood as a declaration that motherhood could exist alongside the pursuit of elite performance. As she explained, “the main message to send is, ‘we will be back!’” In that single phrase, she placed herself in a lineage of athletes whose careers were not interrupted but rather reshaped by the arrival of motherhood.