'There's no stopping us': Jodie Grinham shares message on International Women's Day
On International Women's Day, we caught up with Para archer Jodie Grinham who won Paralympic gold while seven months pregnant 08 Mar 2025
On International Women's Day, Paralympic gold medallist Jodie Grinham has a message for women: "Please do not let anybody in this world tell you what you can and can't do".
Grinham, who caveats her advice with "unless it's a doctor or medical professional", was seven months pregnant when she competed in Para archery at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. While fans and fellow athletes marvelled at the physical and mental strength required to compete on the biggest stage, Grinham herself was unfussed.
"To be honest, the pregnancy being part of it was something that I didn't even think was going to be a big thing," she recalls. "Women have been getting pregnant for as long as humankind has been around.
"There is no reason that we should be treated differently because we are carrying a baby. If anything, we are stronger, we are more ambitious."
On this #InternationalWomensDay, Jodie Grinham shares her experiences on winning a gold and bronze medal at Paris 2024 while seven months pregnant! 🥇 🥉
— Paralympic Games (@Paralympics) March 8, 2025
Read more here: https://t.co/EtuqfnQ2Nr pic.twitter.com/dA6v2czvVv
Stronger and more ambitious
Grinham returned to the Paralympic Games eight years after winning a silver medal on her debut at Rio 2016. She missed Tokyo 2020 because of a fall that resulted in a broken right elbow, wrist, knee and ankle.
Preparing for the Paris 2024 Paralympics was a totally different experience from the months leading up to Rio 2016, Grinham says. Accounting for the movement of the baby was particularly important for a sport where the athlete has to remain still.
"I shoot 50 metres, which is half the size of a football pitch. I'm aiming at the size of a biscuit for my 10 and actually the slightest movement on me, whether that's the wind, whether that's me breathing, whether that's a little judder, can make me go from hitting the 10 to I could miss the target,” Grinham says.
"I had a full-grown baby in my belly at seven months that was kicking and spinning and turning and going into my back and jumping around and kicking down and giving me little electric shocks. And they're all things that you have to be able to master."
And master them she did. Grinham had an incredible Games in Paris, winning gold in the mixed team compound open with Nathan Macqueen and bronze in the women’s individual compound open.
She celebrated on the top spot of the podium with the baby.
"It is so surreal because I knew I could do it as an athlete, but to go and do it as a pregnant athlete, the doors that has opened for other women, the perspective I have on sport itself has changed."
Grinham added that the medals will always be something that bind her with her daughter.
"Obviously she has no idea, and that's the story that I will be able to grow up and share with her and tell her. That's a different connection there than most children get to have. She is part champion in herself, before she was even born. She definitely earned that medal with me."
Great Britain wins the mixed team compound open
Mother and daughter moment
While winning her maiden Paralympic gold is a moment she will cherish forever, she also says that preparing for the Games holds a special place in her heart.
Grinham has spoken out openly about fertility and the issues that women face, including miscarriages she had before giving birth to her son Christian in 2022 and how challenging it is to decide when to start a family when you are an elite athlete.
Immediately after finding out she was pregnant with her second child, Grinham says plans for Paris 2024 began with her partner at home as well as her coach, as they all figured out how to make it work with minimum impact on family life and her training for the Games.
"We had those conversations, and they were really difficult to have but needed to have because I wasn't willing to give up having a family and I wasn't willing to give up being an athlete and go into those Games," she recalls.
"My coach was amazing. The minute she found out, she knew. She's an Olympian herself; she's a mother herself. She knows what is like being pregnant and actually the challenges it comes with, as well as being an archer.
"We put together training plans and different simulations to how the baby would move and how I would react to it. There was never a doubt in my mind that between me and my partner, you know, my management team, my director and my fantastic coach, that we wouldn't be able to do this and we did.”
Training for the movement of the baby inside her proved to be a master stroke from Grinham and her coach, as she was forced to deal with it throughout competition at Paris 2024.
"In the gold medal match, you actually see me, I'm swaying," she said. "I'm having a little dance because when I move, baby doesn't move as much as when I'm still.
"So I'm dancing and swaying because I'm enjoying it. Being in competition, being at that level, that's what I do this for.
"I don't train for four years to go to an event to then freak out and get scared. I go there to thrive. This is what I've trained for, this is what I've worked hard for. I'm going to enjoy it and I'm going to love it."
'There's no stopping us'
Now a mother of two children, Grinham hopes her appearance at the Games will show women that they do not have to guilty for taking whichever path they choose.
"There's a bit of both. You know you're a bad person if you've given up your career to be a mum, but then you're a bad mum if you choose your career as well as having a baby," she said. "There's always stigma, but I feel like we're slowly breaking the fact that women are doing both.
"If Paris did anything, it highlighted the mums and women out there. There's no stopping us."
Regardless of where women are in life, pregnant or not, Grinham’s desire on International Women’s Day is that women will chase after their dreams and not let others dictate their direction.
"Please do not let anybody in this world tell you what you can and can't do unless it's a doctor or medical professional, because at the end of the day, the only person that knows you best is you, and sometimes all it takes is for you to honestly believe,” she said.
"If you put the hard work in and if you can write down that goal and there is a genuine plan for you to be able to do it, then go and do it. Whether or not you achieve that goal, whether or not you get the desired result that you're aiming for, regardless of whether it's sport or business, whether it's home life - put those steps in place.
"Change those plans. Make those mistakes. Fail at things. Learn from it. But just do it because you will regret not doing it."
