"I was like 'Why am I not last'": Tara Davis-Woodhall reveals she didn't let Olympics' blunder deter her search for gold in Paris

Olympic champion long jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall recounted an unexpected blunder she had made, which nearly denied her another chance to win an Olympic gold medal after her first attempt at the Tokyo Games. The 26-year-old long jumper recently sat for a conversation with Cosmo Sports, the sports wing of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Davis-Woodhall recounted how she almost mistook her positioning in the preliminary competition for the finals. She added that if not for her mentality to never back down, she wouldn't have edged out her opponents for the winning jump she made at the quadrennial event in Paris 2024.

The long jumper remarked in her interview:

"I found out I competed in the finals at 8 o’clock at night. The day of the competition, I was going seventh, and usually if you win your prelims, you compete last [in the eighth spot]. So I was like, What the heck, why am I not last? That’s how it’s supposed to be. But it was whatever. The competition starts at 8 p.m. on the dot, and each competitor has one minute to jump. I'm the seventh jumper. I was like, I really want to see “8:08” when I’m out here, but again, I was like whatever."

"Bro, at 8:07, I’m on the runway, and I was like, Hey, lock in. I take off, I jump, and that is the 7.10m [winning] jump. Fast-forward, I win the competition—woo!—and then I’m at home going through pictures, and I was like, “Freak! I didn’t get to see ‘8:08’ today, Hunter!” And that’s the day I won the Olympics!" Davis-Woodhall added.

Tara Davis-Woodhall previously competed at the Tokyo Olympics, finishing in sixth place in the finals.

---

Tara Davis-Woodhall recounts how a tough loss at the World Championships gave her new hope for the Paris Olympics

Tara Davis-Woodhall recounts her tragic miss at the Budapest World Championships 2023 [Image Source: Getty]

Undoubtedly, the Paris Olympics were the second chance for Tara Davis-Woodhall to win an Olympic gold medal. However, she learnt a tough lesson with her loss at the World Championships held in Budapest a year earlier.

In the conversation with Cosmo Sports, the 26-year-old long jumper said that her loss at the World Championships made her more determined to win an Olympic gold medal at Paris 2024.

"I was this close to winning and on the final jump, I got it taken away. I was like, Ugh, that hurt. You can’t let that happen again. I wanted to put something out there so far that no one could touch it," she said.

Woodhall had made her best attempt of 6.91m in her first attempt at the long jump finals of the 2023 World Championships. She was leading the race for the gold medal until the second jump, when Ivana Vuleta of Serbia took the lead with a leap of 7.05m. In the fifth jump, Vuleta sealed the deal with her best attempt of 7.14m, and Tara Davis-Woodhall had to settle for the silver medal ultimately.

Tara Davis-Woodhall won the Indoor World Championships next year, with a best attempt of 7.07m, only months before the Paris Olympics. The long jumper will aim to end the gold medal drought with her next attempt at the Tokyo World Championships, which shall be held in September 2025.