An athlete in the UK has received a lot of praise for her honest post about having to miss out on a competition because of period pain.
Jazmin Sawyers posted on Twitter, “I sadly had to pull out of the competition here in Boston yesterday – I’m fine, and will be jumping in Oslo next week, but give this a read.”
The 23-year-old athlete then posted a statement which explained that she was forced to pull out of the competition due to the severity of her period pains.
She explained:
“I wasn’t going to give an explanation online about why I pulled out of yesterday’s competition but this is something that isn’t talked about enough in sport, and it ought to be. About an hour before I was supposed to leave for the track I came on my period – I get VERY bad periods for the first 1-2 days. Can’t walk, intense pain radiating down my legs, head spinning, full body sweating, shouting, crying kind of bad.
5 mins before leaving for the track all of the above happened. If you don’t have periods, or don’t have them this bad, it’s hard to imagine why I can’t just suck it up and compete, but when you’re in so much pain you can’t walk more than a few steps, and your legs buckle under your own weight, there’s no chance you can jump.”
I sadly had to pull out of the competition here in Boston yesterday – I’m fine, and will be jumping in Oslo next week, but give this a read pic.twitter.com/go810aSM0V
— Jazmin Sawyers (@JazminSawyers) June 5, 2017
Fellow athletes and the general public have been thanking her for being so open and honest.
Omg! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I've never seen a statement like this in all my years. I have the same kind of periods.
— Sara (@The_Sara_817) June 5, 2017
V important to talk openly & be grown up re this. It's a shame to see a couple of silly replies, which don't help the purpose of the tweet
— Stephen Prior (@saprior) June 5, 2017
I totally hear you. I've gotten my period mid way through an Ironman race. Not ideal at all. I do my best to talk about it too. 👍👍
— Tarsh Wendt (@Supergal007) June 5, 2017
Brilliant work for posting. I once pulled out of a race just because it looked like a 'long' 200m so I am in constant awe of real challenges
— Leo (@decath10n) June 5, 2017
Sounds worse than the indigestion I get after an all-you-can-eat buffet. And I wouldn't dream of jumping after that. Fair play for posting.
— Jon Mulkeen (@Statman_Jon) June 5, 2017
Every sportswomen, at whatever level, who suffers from severe menstrual cycles appreciates that you spoke out. Thank you Jaz
— Emily Todd 💙 (@EmilyDudgeon) June 5, 2017
