'I'm incredibly lucky to have home city's support'

Athlete Jazmin Sawyers has said she felt "incredibly lucky" to have had the support of her home city after winning a gold medal for England at the Commonwealth Games.

The 32-year-old from Stoke-on-Trent came out on top in the women's long jump on Saturday with a distance of 6.93m, ahead of Nigeria's Ruth Usoro and Brooke Buschkuehl of Australia.

Her success in Glasgow came after multiple setbacks in her career, including a serious injury which forced her to miss the 2024 Olympics.

Despite the previous disappointments, Sawyers said she always tried to keep believing in herself and praised her home city for getting behind her.

"I've always felt it… some athletes talk about how you have to go it alone but it was never all me. I never had to do all this alone," she told BBC Radio Stoke.

"I always felt like I had the support of thousands and thousands of people because I felt like everyone in the area has been backing me the entire time.

"One of the beautiful things about Stoke is that when somebody says 'I'm going after something' everyone goes 'go on then, we all reckon you can have a good go at that'."

She said she felt through her entire career that she had had the city's support "at every turn".

Sawyers added: "I'm so lucky in that sense. There's a lot of things about sport that aren't luck but there are so many things that are.

"I have been incredibly lucky to have the support of the city."

Sawyers previously won a silver medal in Glasgow during the 2014 Commonwealth Games and said she had long been looking to "upgrade".

She suffered recent disappointments, including finishing just outside the medals at the previous games in Birmingham and failing to qualify for the final of the 2023 World Championships.

She had to undergo surgery after rupturing her Achilles tendon on her take-off leg and, rather than competing in the Paris Olympics, she ended up commentating for the BBC instead.

On how she felt when she realised she had won the gold medal, she said: "It's just pure joy.

"What I find so amazing is it was as good as I was hoping it to be. It's the thing I've been working for – the idea I can win gold medals and top podiums."

Sawyers said the fact it came after she had to overcome so many obstacles and disappointments made it even better.

"The hardest time to believe [in yourself] is in the moments after you have failed again," she added.

"The failure comes thick and fast in sport. Every single time it happens, you have to pick yourself up and go 'despite this new evidence I have that says I can't do it, I still choose to believe that I can'."

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