Tara Davis-Woodhall exclusive: “I have to put something out so far that no one can touch it”
American long-jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall is on fire in the lead-up to the Olympic Games Paris 2024, and it's not something that has happened by chance.
Making a podium at the World Championships is something that even some of the best athletes never get to experience, but the 24-year-old was less than satisfied with finishing the competition in second place.
Three months before the start of the Games, Davis-Woodhall sat down with Olympics.com in New York to talk about everything that’s different heading into Paris. And, well, it’s just about everything.
“I have to put something out so far that no one can touch it. And that’s what I’m doing now,” she said.
Tara Davis-Woodhall of Team United States competes in the Women's Long Jump Final on day eleven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Tara’s flip from the lead-up to Tokyo
Due to the fact it took place during the height of the pandemic, the reality of Tokyo 2020 didn’t quite match the visions that many athletes had harbored for so long when they took to the Olympic stage.
There were no crowds, athletes didn't have the opportunity to mingle freely with each other, and Davis-Woodhall's training partner and Paralympian husband Hunter wasn’t even in the country.
Today, everything is different.
“I do feel more joy now than I did in [the lead-up to] Tokyo,” she told Olympics.com.
“Now, I’m living with my husband in Arkansas and we just enjoy life to the fullest. We have so much fun with everything that we do.”
While things seem so different now compared to those Games in Japan, with the world returning to post-pandemic normalcy and Davis-Woodhall tying the knot in 2022, one of the most pivotal moments in the athlete's career came in 2023 when she won silver at the World Championships in Budapest, coming agonisingly close to gold.
Tara Davis, second place in the Women's Long Jump Final, cries as she celebrates on day nine of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials at Hayward Field on June 26, 2021 in Eugene, Oregon.
“I know how I felt getting second place,” she said, gritting her teeth, in a video on her YouTube channel.
“I was so close and it took one jump for someone to take it away from me.
“Second place flipped a switch for me. [Now,] I show up to practice on time, I grind harder than I ever have, I pay attention harder than I ever have, I’m frustrated about the small things because I know those small things are important,” she continued.
“I was training hard, but I didn’t give it 100% my best effort.”
As the countdown to Paris continues, Davis-Woodhall is putting in more than she ever has, she’s pushing her limits beyond what she ever thought possible and, with her husband doing the same, the team that the two have created has become a force to be reckoned with ahead of Paris.
Tara Davis, second place in the Women's Long Jump Final, celebrates with (now) husband and Paralympian Hunter Woodhall at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials in Eugene, Oregon.
Tara Davis-Woodhall on the meaning of sacrifice
“Sacrifice means almost everything to me,” Davis-Woodhall told Olympics.com. “It’s changed a lot over the years, my values and meaning for sacrifice.”
From understanding early that she couldn’t go on every vacation with her family, or to every pool day with her friends, it is the seemingly minor everyday sacrifices that have built Davis-Woodhall into the world-beating jumper that she is today.
“Like Tara says, it’s not always this big, heroic move that you’re making that is sacrifice,” Hunter agrees in the same YouTube video. “Just doing these little things that you know aren’t the best thing for you, for your athletic career.”
“Things like that are why athletes are one of the highest levels of people with bad mental health,” he continues, adding that whichever path is taken, it’s a sacrifice - whether that is athletic or personal - and about living with the decision that was chosen.
Davis-Woodhall even has the word "sacrifice" tattooed on her torso and explained how “it was one of the first words I actually learned through track and field of what it means to become an athlete.”
With so little time to go until the next Olympic Games, the difference between the lead-up to Tokyo and the lead-up to Paris seems to be night and day for the jumper.
“It pays off,” she concludes. “It pays off more than we would know. And if I could tell kids that sacrificing doesn't mean giving up your entire life, it just means sacrificing things here and there so you can be the best person that you could be. Best athlete, or best person.”