Three-time Olympic gold medalist Sanya Richards-Ross has explained why she revealed information about her abortion prior to competition in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The Jamaican-born Richards-Ross said the move was to assist other women avoid what she had experienced.
She made the revelation in her book Chasing Grace, which was released on Tuesday, that she had an abortion the day before she left the United States for the Olympic Games in China where she won bronze in the 400 meters. She won gold as a member of the USA’s mile-relay team.
During an interview with Maggie Gray for SI Now on SI.com, the 32-year-old athlete said she wanted to start a discussion about a pervasive issue.
“The truth is it’s an issue that isn’t really talked about, especially in sports, and a lot of young women have experienced this,” Richards Ross said. “Like, I literally do not know another female track athlete who hasn’t had an abortion and that’s sad. For me, I’m hoping that this will open up some discussions to help especially young women who [are] in my situation not experience what I did.”
“I think because at that time in your life, when you’re in college, you know you don’t feel comfortable talking to your mom and so a lot of the information you get is from your peers – and it’s going to sound silly to some people – but in our community people don’t want to take the pill cause you put ‘water-weight’ on, and of course as an athlete, you want to be able to stay as fit and as healthy as possible,” she explained.
“And then people tell you when you are extremely fit that you can’t get pregnant because our cycles are shorter so there is a lot of mis-education that happens to young women in college because we are educating ourselves.”
She said that at the time when she decided to do the abortion she was not aware of all her options. “My husband and I had been dating for five years, I was engaged to him – I had [had] no mishaps prior so I was just put in a really, really tough situation and for me it was so much more than the physical,” she said.
“I mean of course you can imagine after the procedure I wasn’t even supposed to run – the doctors told me to take 14 days off. I didn’t have 14 days, but it was more for me about the spiritual and emotional part of the experience that I wanted to share because it wasn’t until even I started this journey that I uncovered some of the hurt that was still there and really try to forgive myself.
“I knew that God had forgiven me for it but really forgive myself for that choice and really move on. Now that I’m going to be a mother and now that God has blessed me again, I felt like I needed to kind of purge myself of that and help others do the same.”
