This athlete pulled out of a contest because of her period and her explanation is inspiring

Jazmin Sawyers is a long jumper and Olympic finalist.

The 23-year-old posted to Twitter that she had to pull out of a competition because of period pain – and her explanation has gained her heaps of praise.

She wrote:

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.

She added that it’s frustrating when you’re back to feeling fine a few hours or the day later. She said it happened to her every month, and recently, she almost missed a flight because she couldn’t drive with the pain. Last year, it affected how far she could compete in the Olympics.

She added:

We discuss injuries and illness openly, but this is something we don’t talk about and I wanted to put it out there because I’m sure there are other young athletes dealing with it. Girl, I believe you when you say how bad it is – you’re not alone.

She's received tonnes of support:

More: This is what it would be like if men had periods