Para archers Jodie Grinham and Nathan Macqueen struck gold for Team Great Britain in the Paris Paralympics mixed team compound final Monday.
The duo beat Iran’s team 155-151. India clinched bronze in a close match against Italy.
“All I wanted to do at the end was jump up and down and cry and scream and shout,” Grinham, who is seven months pregnant, told BBC Wales.
“But being heavily pregnant, realistically the best thing to do was crouch down and take a second and then I could give hugs and things.”
It brings the Welsh archer’s total Paralympic medal tally to three. She nabbed bronze on Saturday in the women’s individual compound open and took home a silver in the mixed team compound event with John Stubbs at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
After her bronze medal win, she spoke about the powerful message she hopes to send as a competitor.
“I didn’t want people to see it as, ‘Oh, there’s a pregnant lady going to a Games,’” she said, per CNN. “I want them to say, ‘Wow, a pregnant lady can compete at the highest level and medal,’ showing you anything is possible. Just go and do it. You want to do it? Then do it.”
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Athletes in the compound open category “usually have an impairment in either the top or bottom half or one side of their bodies,” according to World Archery.
Grinham told The Athletic last month she has no fingers and half a thumb on her left side, and “my arms are different lengths, my shoulder is undeveloped through my left side that goes through to my left core and left hip” due to a congenital condition called brachysyndactyly.
Teammate Macqueen was paralyzed after a serious motorbike accident when he was 17.
Grinham, already a mom to toddler Christian, told The Athletic she believes she’s the first Paralympian to compete at such a late stage of pregnancy,
“My team have joked a few times that my waters could just break on the podium,” she said. “That would be quite something.”
She also spoke about complications she experienced during her first pregnancy, and revealed that she and her partner, Christopher Greenan, have suffered three miscarriages.
“I was aware I might not even get to these Games if I had the same problems as my last pregnancy. I’ve decided I want a family and a career, I want to be able to do both,” she said.
Her team has a plan in place should she go into labor in Paris, having researched local hospitals and legal logistics. Her doctors cleared her to compete after a health scare regarding the baby last week prompted a trip to hospital.
“We’ve got every backup plan you could imagine,” she told The Athletic.
