Jazmin Sawyers

Jazmin Sawyers (born 21 May 1994) is a British track and field athlete who competes in the long jump. She has also competed as a bobsledder and a heptathlete.

Jazmin Sawyers

Personal information
Nationality	British
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Born	(1994-05-21) 21 May 1994 Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, England
Education	University of Bristol
Height	1.62 m (5 ft 4 in)[1]
Weight	60 kg (132 lb)
Sport
Coached by	Kelly Sotherton
Medal record Representing  Great Britain Women's bobsleigh Winter Youth Olympics 2012 Innsbruck Bobsleigh Women's athletics World Junior Athletics Championships 2012 Barcelona Long jump European Championships 2016 Amsterdam Long jump Representing  England Commonwealth Games 2014 Glasgow Long jump Commonwealth Youth Games 2011 Isle of Man Long jump 2011 Isle of Man 4 x 100m relay

She was the silver medallist in the long jump at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. In 2017, she competed in the sixth series of The Voice UK.

Early life

Born in Stoke-on-Trent to a Jamaican father and an English mother,[2] Sawyers was initially a child gymnast, participating in the sport from the age of four. At ten years old she began to take part in athletics events at school and decided to start practising in various events.[3]

Sawyers studied for a degree in law at Bristol University.[4]

Athletics career

As part of City of Stoke Athletics Club, Sawyers focused mainly on high jump and long jump.[5] At the 2007 English Schools Championships she was the high jump runner-up with a personal best of 1.70 m (5 ft 6 ³⁄₄ in), finishing behind Katarina Johnson-Thompson.[6] The following year she won the English Schools' titles in the long jump and the pentathlon – a feat she repeated in 2009.[5] In 2010, she won a scholarship to study at Millfield public school.

Youth and junior medals

Sawyer's first international appearances came in 2011. At the 2011 World Youth Championships in Athletics she placed ninth in the heptathlon. She cleared six metres in the long jump for the first time that year and surpassed that mark to win the gold in the event at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games.[5] She was also a 4×100 metres relay champion with England at that event.[7]

Sawyers' bobsleigh training at the start of the year meant she was ill-prepared for heptathlon in the summer of 2012. She opted to focus on the long jump instead, as this combined well with the explosive strength training she had undertaken for the winter sport.[3] This proved to be a successful switch as she set a personal best of 6.64 m (21 ft 9 ¹⁄₄ in) to place third at the British Athletics Championships and also set the world-leading junior mark.[8] Sawyers was the bronze medallist at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics – her distance of 6.67 m (21 ft 10 ¹⁄₂ in) was beaten only by the wind-assisted jumps of British rival Katerina Johnson-Thompson and Germany's Lena Malkus.[9] Her performance was the second best wind-legal jump by a junior woman that year.[10]

Sawyers gained a place at the University of Sheffield and began training there as well with local coach Toni Minichiello.[3] She continued her focus on the long jump into the 2013 season. She was runner-up at the BUCS university championships indoor and outdoors. She repeated that placing at her two major events that year, taking silver behind Shara Proctor at the UK Championships then another silver at the European Junior Championships behind Malaika Mihambo of Germany.[11] At the end of the track and field season she won her first meet abroad at the Gugl Games in Linz, Austria.[5] She changed university to study law and criminology at Bristol University. She based her training near the University of Bath, however, working with coach and former long jumper Alan Lerwill.[12]

2014 Commonwealth Games medal

At the start of 2014, Sawyers set an indoor best of 6.44 m (21 ft 1 ¹⁄₂ in) to place second to Johnson-Thompson at the UK Athletics Indoor Championships.[13] Outdoors, she had a string of victories (including a win at the universities championships) in the buildup to the 2014 European Team Championships, where she placed ninth overall. She was again second best to Johnson-Thompson at the outdoor national championships but both gained selection for the long jump for England at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. However, Johnson-Thompson withdrew prior to the championships and the other leading English athlete Proctor could not compete in the final due to injury, making Sawyer's England's leading medal hope.[14] At the competition in Glasgow her final round jump of 6.54 m (21 ft 5 ¹⁄₄ in) was a season's best and resulted in a silver medal – her first international senior medal and just two centimetres behind winner Ese Brume.[15]

Bobsleigh career

In 2011, Sawyers was approached by the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association to train for the inaugural Youth Winter Olympics. Acting as brakewoman, she formed a two-man bob team with Mica McNeil. In January 2012 she represented Great Britain at the bobsleigh at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics and Sawyers and McNeil became the country's first ever medal-winning team at the competition (and the only medallists for Britain that year), taking the silver medals behind the Dutch team.[16] As a result, she was chosen as one of the carriers for the 2012 Olympic torch relay.[3]

Other activities

Sawyers is a singer/songwriter in her spare time and, in February 2017 appeared in ITV's The Voice UK. She was successful in securing Will.i.am as her coach during the 'blind auditions', though she told the programme her main priority remained with athletics.[4] She was eliminated from the programme on 26 February in a sing-off against fellow singer Hayley Eccles.[17] Sawyers is also an Ambassador for Right To Play, the world's leading sport for development charity.[18] She visited Right To Play's education programme in Tanzania in 2018.

References

1. "Athlete profile: Jazmin Sawyers". Gold Coast 2018. Commonwealth Games Corporation. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
2. "Jazmin Sawyers". Glasgow 2014. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
3. "Jazmin Sawyers". Sport Sheffield. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
4. Ben Bloom (7 February 2017). "Meet Jazmin Sawyers: From the Olympics to The Voice in six months"". The Telegraph. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
5. "Jazmin Sawyers". Power of 10. British Athletics. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
6. "Sainsbury English Schools Championships 2007". Power of 10. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
7. "Commonwealth Youth Games 2011". Archived from the original on 31 August 2013. Retrieved 16 August 2014. World Junior Athletics History
8. Minshull, Phil (7 July 2012). "Winter wonder Jazmin Sawyer still loves the Long Jump". IAAF. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
9. Valiente, Emeterio (13 July 2012). "Barcelona 2012 – Event Report – Women's Long Jump Final". IAAF. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
10. "Long Jump – women – junior – outdoor – 2012 Top List". IAAF. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
11. "Sainsbury's British Championships 2013". Power of 10. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
12. Reynolds, Tom (30 July 2014). "Just how much can Jazmin Sawyers achieve?". BBC Sport. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
13. "British Athletics Championships Indoor 2014". Power of 10. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
14. "Katarina Johnson-Thompson out of Glasgow 2014 with foot injury". BBC Sport. 21 July 2014. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
15. "Glasgow 2014: Jazmin Sawyers jumps to silver in long jump". BBC Sport. 31 July 2014. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
16. Hope, Nick (22 January 2012). "Winter Youth Olympics: GB bobsleigh duo win silver". BBC Sport. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
17. Tom Burnett (26 February 2017). "Jazmin Sawyers eliminated from The Voice on ITV". The Sentinel. Local World. Archived from the original on 27 February 2017. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
18. "Right To Play ambassadors". Right To Play. Retrieved 28 November 2019.

External links

• Jazmin Sawyers at World Athletics
• Jazmin Sawyers on Twitter