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Bristol law student who missed criminal law exam to land silver Commonwealth Games medal juggles intense training schedule with final year of studies

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By Katie King on

And you think you’ve got it tough…

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A final year student at a top UK university has proved that life at law school doesn’t have to be all about crying over your equity textbook.

Bristol law student Jazmin Sawyers has managed to balance studying for a demanding degree with the hard graft to sustain an internationally acclaimed sports career.

Sawyers, from Stoke-on-Trent, has been involved in sports since she was a kid, having taken up gymnastics at the tender age of four. She started athletics aged 10, and it’s proved to be her calling ever since.

The clean sport advocate is now an Adidas athlete and a preeminent long jumper. Her finest moment was perhaps the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Sawyers — who missed her criminal law exam to qualify for the competition — won a silver medal at the games for her remarkable 6.54m jump. She recently finished 13th in the women’s long jump at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland, Oregon, a result she was “angry and disappointed” with.

But her sports achievements don’t begin and end on the athletics track. In 2012, the aspiring lawyer represented Great Britain at the Winter Youth Olympics’ bobsleigh competition. Sawyers and partner Mica McNeil became the country’s first ever medal-winning team at the competition — an achievement that saw her chosen as one of the carriers for the London Olympics torch relay.

The multi-talented sportswoman really does seem to have it all and, as if we weren’t jealous enough already, a quick scan of her YouTube channel shows she can sing as well.

Juggling so many time-consuming ventures sounds like a very big ask to Legal Cheek, but that’s just what Sawyers likes about it all. The budding lawyer — who boasts a total of 8,000 followers on her Instagram and Twitter accounts — is reported to have told the BBC:

I long jump, I sing, I study law…the chaos keeps me sane.

But, when all is said and done, there are some things that all law students have in common. Reassuringly, Sawyer’s Twitter account is full of typical uni student quibbles and complaints about coursework and exams.

We wish Sawyers all the best with her final exams.