Paris 2024 Paralympic Games: Couples competing together in the City of Love
As Tara Davis-Woodhall won her first Olympic medal, gold in the long jump at Paris 2024, the first person she celebrated with was her equally ecstatic husband, Hunter Woodhall.
Jumping into his arms with the force of the leap representative of being a long-time practitioner of her craft, the American's face was upturned to the sky as her husband of 22 months caught her, while yelling, "You're an Olympic champion!"
The California native turned her face back to her fellow athlete spouse, and looking deep into each other's eyes, and without lowering volume, Hunter repeated, "You're an Olympic champion".
The pair giggled in disbelief.
All being well, the reverse could happen at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games as Hunter takes to the purple-hued athletics track on 1 September in the men’s 100m T64 heats, four days after the Opening Ceremony on 28 August.
With three Paralympic medals already to his name – a silver and bronze from Rio 2016, and bronze from Tokyo 2020 – any further gongs added in France's capital and what an even happier household that would make.
“We bring a lot of diversity into our relationship," said Hunter, who was born with fibular hemimelia, a condition that stops lower limbs from developing properly. "We want to be really transparent about that. Tara is a woman of colour. I have a disability. We want people to know that whoever you are, whatever situation you’re in, it’s okay and that’s what makes you special and unique.”
So, as this couple transfer their personal allegiances from Olympic to Paralympic sport, alongside the wider sporting community, we take a look at the Paralympic couples who are set to continue the drama across 11 days in France's capital on the greatest sporting stage of all.
Tara Davis-Woodhall of Team USA celebrates with husband and Para athlete Hunter Woodhall after winning the gold medal in the women's long jump at Olympic Games Paris 2024
Focus turns to the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games
Hannah Cockroft and Nathan Maguire have a big summer ahead, and not just at the athletics track at the Stade de France in their respective wheelchair disciplines. Come Games' end, the pair are getting married.
With nuptials on the back burner for now, Cockroft's immediate focus is on keeping her streak of seven Paralympic medals – all of them gold – ongoing. Maguire, meanwhile, is hoping to add to his silver in the 4x100m Universal relay at Tokyo 2020 – the only relay event in Para athletics, featuring four athletes with four different disabilities on the track.
Dinner-table conversation revolves around the nuances of their sport, admits Cockcroft, a five-time world record breaker and winner of 14 world titles. “We live and breathe wheelchair racing. We don’t switch off from it.
“The only other thing we talk about is planning the wedding and I’d rather not talk about that to be honest!"
Bathroom slipper table-tennis bat to Paris 2024 - with help from partner
Nigeria's Christiana Alabi and Kayode Alabi are of similar ilk, performing well at their debut Paralympic Games all-consuming.
The Para table tennis playing pair met at the national trials in Lagos in 2017, with Christiana approaching Kayode to ask for guidance in her own game. Having grown up using bathroom slippers as bats and hitting golf balls across wooden benches in the street as a child, Christiana's skills were rudimentary.
By 2019, the pair were training together, and married in 2022.
"I loved her from the first time I set my eyes on her because she's very calm in everything she's doing," said Kayode.
"He taught me everything about table tennis – how to serve, how to be in the right position - everything," said Christiana.
The duo also face challenges such as travel to and from the sports hall where they train.
"It's not very easy to be a disabled person," said Kayode, the two-time gold medallist at the 2023 African Championships. "We just train here to be what we want to be in life. We don't have a car, we have to take a bus. It's a lot of work getting from our home to the training."
Despite the difficulties, which involve staying at the sports hall between sessions due to the travel challenges, both are now the top players in Nigeria in their respective men's and women's disciplines.
Similar to Cockcroft and Maguire, studying videos of their performances after they get home from training at the sports hall is a nightly occurrence, with training also increasing exponentially as Paris 2024 gets closer.
The hard work is for a purpose. The pair have big ambitions in Paris.
"I believe that for both of us to be the No.1 in our country, and the No.1 in Africa, we can be the No.1 in the world," Kayode said. "So, we are not just going there to participate – we are going there for a mission that we want to achieve.
"We want to get the gold."
Support for each other key to success for Prachi Yadav and Manish Kaurav
Para canoeists Prachi Yadav and Manish Kaurav so enjoyed winning medals together at the 2022 Para Asian Games, that the married couple want to replicate the feat in the City of Love.
No Asian nation has won a medal in Para canoe at the Paralympics, so the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium would be the perfect venue to achieve their ambition.
Mind you, Yadav, will have to control her nerves to do so. Not for herself, but when her husband takes to the water.
“I’m always so happy when my husband wins a medal because in his event, there is tough competition," said Yadav, who was the first Indian athlete to take part in Para canoe at the Paralympics, coming fourth at Tokyo 2020. "So, I’m happy whenever he wins a medal.”
For his part, his wife is his "idol" says Kaurav.
"Sometimes I feel very stressed, and Prachi is the one who always supports me. She motivates me by saying, ‘Yeah, you can do better. You can do it’,” he said. “That’s how we inspire each other.”
Teamwork learned on court aids family life, too
Taking part in a team event is another way to not only celebrate on-court success together but also the rather trickier endeavour of raising a child together, as wheelchair basketball players Robyn Love and Laurie Williams are finding out.
After daughter Alba was born in April, the twosome are using their hard-learned experience of playing in a team together to good use.
"I think we have been a perfect team, and under high-pressure situations, so having this little baby, I think we've definitely had the experience that helped us handle it," said Love.
"Through sport, you're made to be like a really good communicator so from the start we communicated how we were feeling and what we found challenging," agreed Williams.
Love watched Williams compete at the 2012 Paralympics in London before meeting her two years later and the pair immediately connected. At the Paralympic Games in Japan, Team GB were knocked out in the quarter finals, a disappointment that needed no words exchanged between them to describe the feeling.
So, in Paris, they want more, and not just in the sporting sense. Not only will they have their daughter watching on this time, but they will also be celebrating a decade together in the city where they also got engaged under the Eiffel Tower.
Paris is turning out to be quite the magical place for the whole family. A medal would add to that nicely.