Novlene Williams-Mills, Jamaican Sprinter, Won Bronze Medal In 2012 Olympics While Battling Breast Cancer

Jamaican runner Novlene Williams-Mills sprinted to a bronze medal in the 2012 Olympics while battling breast cancer.

Williams-Mills told the Daily Mail she was diagnosed with breast cancer a month before the Games, where she finished fifth in the 400m and was a part of the bronze medal-winning 400m relay team.

But only she, her husband and a few close friends knew what she was truly battling. She didn’t even tell her teammates. Three days after the Games ended, she had a lumpectomy.

"That’s everybody’s dream, to run at the Olympics,” she told the Daily Mail. “But I was thinking about my hurdles that I have to come back to fight. I was thinking am I going to survive this. I was standing on the podium and I didn’t know if I would ever run another race."

Since then, Williams-Mills, 31, has had a full mastectomy to reduce any chances of the cancer that killed her sister at just 38 from reoccurring.

And in June, she was back on the track, winning the 400m at the Jamaican Championships, just as she had the year before. That paves the way for her to compete in the Moscow Games later this summer, where she is on record in saying she will be running for all those with breast cancer.

"I’m still one of the top 400m runners in the world and I want to see what I can do,” she said. “Moscow will be for all the breast cancer survivors out there. I want them to know it’s still possible."

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