While I love the Olympics and Olympian stories, I have to admit that I totally blanked out on Sanya Richards-Ross, possibly because I tend to phase out the Olympian stories in the second week, which is when all of the running starts up. I prefer Week 1: gymnastics, swimming and tennis. Anyway, Sanya is a four-time Olympic gold medalist. She won gold in Athens, Beijing and London, and she picked up a bronze in Rio. You can see her Wiki here. Sanya has a new memoir out called Chasing Grace. In the memoir, she describes her decision to terminate an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy just one day before she flew out to Beijing for the Olympics.
Five-time Olympic medalist Sanya Richards-Ross reveals in a new memoir that she had an abortion just weeks before sprinting in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games — a decision she says cost her more than a gold medal.
“Over the phone, we didn’t go into details,” the 32-year-old writes about the decision she made with fiancé (now husband) Aaron Ross to have the abortion. “As if not saying it would alleviate some of the guilt and the shame.”
Chasing Grace: What the Quarter Mile Has Taught Me About God and Life releases on Tuesday and delves into her faith, her career as a runner and her romance with Ross, 34, a cornerback for the New York Giants. In 2008, they were engaged and planned to marry in February 2010. The pregnancy was unexpected, especially as they both were beginning their professional athletic careers. Richards-Ross, proudly Jamaican-American, wanted Olympic gold.
“Everything I ever wanted seemed to be within reach,” she writes. “The culmination of a lifetime of work was right before me. In that moment, it seemed like no choice at all. The debate of when life begins swirled through my head, and the veil of a child out of wedlock at the prime of my career seemed unbearable. What would my sponsors, my family, my church, and my fans think of me?”
According to Chasing Grace, Ross wasn’t present during the procedure because he was at training camp. While it was done “quickly,” she couldn’t escape the emotional pain.
“I made a decision that broke me, and one from which I would not immediately heal,” she writes. “Abortion would now forever be a part of my life. A scarlet letter I never thought I’d wear. I was a champion— and not just an ordinary one, but a world-class, record-breaking champion. From the heights of that reality I fell into a depth of despair.”
The next day she flew to Beijing for the Olympics and prepared to win gold, even though her doctor recommended she avoid exercise for two weeks following the procedure. The night before her 300 meter race she couldn’t sleep and the next day her “confidence was diminishing.”
During the race, Richards-Ross got a cramp in her hamstring and came in at third place when she expected to win. She describes being “broken, physically and emotionally.”
Sanya and Aaron Ross married in 2010, and she’s pregnant right now – she announced her pregnancy back in February of this year. While I’m a strident pro-choice advocate, I know that for many women, it’s not a black-and-white issue. There are a lot of mixed emotions and doubts and yes, even some regrets. I would never presume to say that every woman who has an abortion believes she made the right choice. But I will say that it’s a choice every woman should make for herself, as opposed to having that choice made for her by her father or her Congressman or her president. That being said, this language of “a scarlet letter I never thought I’d wear” doesn’t help anyone. You made a difficult choice. Other women need the freedom to make their own choices without that kind of narrative.
Now, I get that Sanya is just trying to tell her story, but I also felt like… girl, don’t have an abortion the day before the Olympics!! Good God. But then I started wondering about the complicated doping tests and what would happen if she competed while pregnant – I’m sure the tests would reveal her pregnancy? – and then had the abortion after the Olympics. Like, if that came out, would her sponsors drop her?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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