The Sport England-backed This Girl Can campaign is set to make history on Friday, when their new advert airs to show a visible tampon string on UK television screens for the first time.

This Girl Can was developed in 2015 to promote sport and activity among women, and since then has inspired four million women to act. On Tuesday This Girl Can launched their latest campaign to continue tackling this issue. Along with an updated activity finder on their website and National Lottery funding for local community groups, they debuted a new advert featuring everyday women of all ages and abilities exercising.

The advert shows footage of Hannah Johnson, 29, who suffers from "debilitating" period cramps, taking part in a yoga class to relieve some of the pain. When Johnson was told her role in the film would include creating the groundbreaking, momentary image of her tampon string on show, she said she was driven by the opportunity to inspire.

"I was quite daunted at first because this subject is quite personal to me," Johnson said at the advert's launch on Tuesday. "I would say in general I'm quite unapologetic about being on my period and having period pains. They're quite debilitating [but] the response in my everyday life, there's less empathy, I've been in [work] environments before where I've felt really pressured to push through, no one cares that I'm in pain.