A new lesson in improvement. This is what British athlete Jodie Grinham offers us, who won a bronze medal in archery this Sunday at the Paris Paralympic Games, held from August 28 to September 8.
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This victory has a special flavor: The 31-year-old athlete is seven months pregnant. Despite his concerns, he passed the test, held on the Esplanade des Invalides: “The baby didn’t stop [moverse]” she told reporters, adding: “I was really starting to worry that the baby was going to move when I was fully lying down.”
The athlete managed to get on the podium after defeating her compatriot Paterson Pine Phoebe in the fight. Before that, she had beaten the Polish Kseniya Markitantova and the Brazilian Jane Karla Sosten, but then lost to the Turkish Oznur Cura, which forced her to go to the semifinals, without the possibility of winning gold, but the bronze that she eventually won.
“I am very proud of myself“I had some challenges and it wasn’t easy, but as long as I’m healthy and my baby is healthy, I knew I could compete. I knew if I shot the best I could, with or without my baby, I could come back with a medal,” he said at the end of the event.
His success in Paris comes eight years after that in Rio de Janeiro. In Brazil, he won silver with John Stubbs in the mixed team.
A unique trajectory
Grinham was born with a shorter left arm, no fingers and half a thumb on his hand. Throughout his career, he has successfully reconciled his professional career and his personal life.
With the help of his father Symon, he developed a bow handle system to be able to practice his discipline. The athlete began training in 2008 and was first selected for the Great Britain team in 2014. She finished seventh at the World Archery Championships in Germany in 2015.
On a personal level, the athlete and his partner, Christopher, with whom they have a son in common, Christian, born in 2022, had suffered three spontaneous abortions and, after becoming pregnant this year, she did not want to miss the opportunity to participate in the Paralympic Games with the approval of doctors.
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“My trainer and I spent a lot of time doing little preparations for pregnancy, where she (the trainer) would move me and move my belly so that I I could get used to this feeling“, the athlete confessed.
“Even during filming, I was standing with my hand completely outstretched and I had this feeling that the baby was moving. It was almost like you recognized it and said, ‘I know you’re here. Mommy loves you. I’ll hold you in a minute.’ That’s all you want to say to yourself at that point. Then I continued my process” he commented, according to EFE.
His feat has become an example of improvement and resilience: “I didn’t realize how inspiring it was and how interested and touched people were. I didn’t want people to see it as, ‘There’s a pregnant woman going to the Games.’ I want them to say, ‘Wow, a pregnant woman can compete at the highest level and win a medal.’ I showed that anything is possible. You just have to go out there and do it. Do you want to do it? Then do it.”
Pregnancy at the Games
Jodie Grinham’s case is not an isolated one. At the Olympic Games, held in early August, that of Nada Hafez moved the world. The The 26-year-old Egyptian fencer qualified for the round of 16 in the sabre category.
At the end of the duel, he made surprising statements on Instagram: “What appears to you to be two players on the podium, Actually, there were three! “It was me, my opponent and my unborn baby!” Hafez wrote on her Instagram account, where she describes herself as a “seven-month pregnant Olympian.”
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The athlete then admitted that during her pregnancy she had to face “a good number of challenges, both physical and emotional“to participate in the most important international sporting event.
