Jodie Grinham: The archer who will compete at Paralympics 28 weeks pregnant

Paralympian’s ‘bump’ is no distraction to medal aim in Paris

With her electric pink, purple and blue tri-coloured hair, it will be easy to spot Jodie Grinham when she lines up at the Paralympics. But there is something else that will make the British para-archer even more distinguishable from her rivals: a bump.
Grinham will be 28 weeks pregnant on her first day of competition in Paris, where she will use the biggest stage to send an empowering message that pregnancy and elite sport are compatible.
Of all the disciplines to compete in while a baby is growing inside you, archery, with its reduced cardiovascular demands and limited upper-body movement, would appear the most appropriate. But there seem to be some obvious practical implications. When Grinham fires arrows over 70 metres at a tiny target face measuring 122cm, how will the bump not get in the way?
“Thankfully, I shoot sideways, so the bump doesn’t usually have an effect. I’ve just got to be careful that when the bow’s swinging, I don’t jab the baby,” Grinham, 31, tells Telegraph Sport. “The biggest challenge has been the kit and the belt. My belt would normally go around my belly button but I can’t do that anymore because I’m like a balloon. I’ve had to change the belt that I use because my old one didn’t fit and I go a lot lower, so everything’s dropped a bit.”
There will be no “Baby on board” sticker on her kit – and Grinham insists she does not want special treatment in an age when sportswomen are pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Afghanistan archer Yaylagul Ramazanova competed in the Paris Olympics when six months pregnant, while Egypt fencer Nada Hafez revealed she was seven months pregnant after being defeated in her round-of-16 match. This is where Grinham will create her own history – she is thought to be further into pregnancy than any woman has been at a Paralympics.
It will come after years tainted by trauma. Grinham and her partner lost three pregnancies before they had their son, Christian, two years ago. She suffered more heartache last year when she had another miscarriage and hit rock bottom, before contracting bacterial meningitis that left her in hospital for three weeks last March. When she discovered she was pregnant weeks later, Grinham, a silver medallist in the mixed team event at the 2016 Rio Olympics alongside John Stubbs, clocked the due date would be roughly six weeks after her competition in Paris. However, the decision to push ahead and compete at her second Paralympics was a no-brainer.
🏹 #Silver @JohnStubbsMBE and @jodie_grinham with the #Archery bling #Supercharge pic.twitter.com/3e9iKawBzE
“With the troubles that we’d had, we didn’t know if we were going to be able to get pregnant again,” says Grinham. “I didn’t want to be in my first trimester going into the Games because that would have been the worst thing I could imagine – trying to perform while also having your head in a bucket. We knew that was the sort of journey we were going to be having, which is why we started trying so early. This one decided to stick. Why shouldn’t I be able to do both? I missed the chance and sadly had too many complications to try and make it mutually exclusive, but if I can have them both together, I’m going to show it’s possible.”
It is why Grinham aims to use her participation to turn a spotlight on the subject of fertility. Data from the World Health Organisation suggests one in six people struggle with infertility over their lifetime. The issue is still swept under the carpet in elite sport, with female athletes who have impaired menstrual health because of excessive training and under-fuelling most at risk.
“Having a family is not as easy as people perceive,” says Grinham. “There are so many women out there who are trying, who won’t talk about it, who don’t have the support or are going through losses or struggles. It’s such a taboo and people see such failure and shame in it that they don’t talk about it, they bottle it up, which doesn’t help us.
“It doesn’t help you conceive, it puts more stress on your body and it doesn’t help you mentally. I ended up in a very dark place because I felt like I was failing as a woman, because that’s what I should be able to do. It’s been a really long, horrible journey.”
Grinham has meticulously adapted her training in her attempt to be a beacon of hope for other women. While it might seem serene and slow, para archery is a lengthy and serious business. Grinham’s compound bow, a complicated contraption full of pulleys and cables, can require up to 28kg of force at full draw, which demands high core strength.
The ranking rounds can last up to three hours, which means a lot of time spent on your feet for competitors like Grinham, who competes in the standing class (those with more limited movement compete in a wheelchair or can lean on a stool).
“I’ve very much had to reduce the hours and be a bit more proactive,” says Grinham, who was born with a short left arm and no fingers and half a thumb on her left hand. “I can’t do my 12-hour days I would have done leading into Rio or a World Championships. I need a two-hour nap if I’m going to be doing that!
“Funnily enough it works really well with the Paris schedule, with a middle session, an after-lunch session and then an evening session, so we’ve tried to make sure my training is similar to the blocks that I’ll be competing in for Paris, replicating it and getting my body used to it.”
Rather than reduce her sporting capacity, pregnancy has provided a new sense of freedom, and she credits British Archery’s medical team and lead coach, Charlotte Burgess, for helping her to pursue her dream. “With certain sessions I have a heart-rate monitor to make sure my heart’s not beating too high and I’m not stressing the baby out, so we’ve made sure I’m safe and the baby’s safe,” says Grinham. “It’s been fun, it’s added a different layer to training and it’s always nice to mix things up. We always do the same thing day in, day out, that’s how you perfect what you do, so to add little things into it has made it enjoyable.”
The prospect of a medal of any colour will be a bonus for Grinham, who won four titles at the European Cup last month in the last major competition before the Parlaympics.
“If I don’t bring a medal back and shoot terribly because I’m extremely fatigued and tired, I’ve still achieved something that not many people will be able to say they have,” says Grinham. “That in itself is incredible. If I go and shoot the way I know I can and bring a medal back… but if I don’t, I don’t. I’ll be gutted, but at the end of the day I get to go home and have a baby and that’s a life achievement I won’t take for granted.”
This pregnant para-archer might just power her way to the podium.