Destination Paris: Tara Davis-Woodhall and husband Hunter focus on small stuff in chase for gold

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Tara Davis-Woodhall preheats the oven, then heads to the back of the house while her husband, Hunter, pulls out the cutting board and methodically slices the sweet potatoes that will be the star of the show for this afternoon’s lunch.

A minute later, Davis-Woodhall reappears with a black box that holds the silver medal she won in women’s long jump at last year’s world championships.

In deciphering what motivates track and field’s top power couple – and exactly what they’re doing to make this year better than last year – this scene inside their newly built house near their training base at the University of Arkansas might offer clues.

“Getting the silver medal was, like, exciting and fun,” Hunter says, before Tara jumps in to complete the sentence.

“But it hurt at the same time,” she says.

This year, the year of the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, is not about coming close or showing up unprepared.

Not for Tara, the 25-year-old former world youth champion and reigning world indoor champion who became a “name” in high school when she broke a 24-year-old record held by none other than Marion Jones.

And not for Hunter, also 25, the Paralympic sprinter whose own trip to worlds last season was ruined by a pair of malfunctioning prosthetics that kept him from making it to the starting line for his featured event, the 400 meters.

In searching for what cost Tara the 23 centimeters (nine inches) that made the difference between first and second in Budapest last year – and what cost Hunter the chance to run at all – they took stock and realized they might not have been dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t.’

Now, Paris is on the calendar, and for months, they have been buckling down on everything. The Associated Press spent time with the couple to get a glimpse of what the path to Paris looks like for aspiring athletes trying to get to the top level.

“World championships can change your career, but the Olympics can change your life,” is how Hunter puts it. “It’s a different beast.”

It helps explain the steady diet of healthy, homemade lunches instead of quick jaunts down the street for easy Mexican food or premade meals from the grocery store.

It helps explain the steady, charted and unforgiving workout regimen at the university.

It helps explain why Hunter has doubled down on the details about his prosthetics – making sure they always fit and work.

“Last year put me in a reality check,” Hunter says. “We have to make prepared decisions.”

Hook 'em

The black cowboy hat with the silver band sits on a hat tree in the living room. Ever since Tara Davis put that on to celebrate a victory at the NCAA Championships in 2021, it was plain to see there was something more there than just a great athlete.

Davis bought her first cowboy hat shopping on Sixth Street in Austin while she was attending the University of Texas.

“I never really wore it, just kept it around,” she says.

She had a friend who liked to wear cowboy hats to track meets, which got her to thinking that maybe someday she’d do that, too.

A few months after she debuted the hat at NCAAs, Davis repeated the scene when she qualified for her first Olympics, the COVID-19-delayed Tokyo Games, in 2021 where she would go on to finish sixth.

“I didn’t know I was going to make it a ‘thing,’” she says. “I just did it to do it.”

And so, a star in the making was born. Her road was not straightforward.

A switch from her original school, Georgia, to Texas cost her one year out of the sport. Then the pandemic hit, costing her another year and leaving her to wonder if track and field was really for her.

“I just kind of lost sight of who I was, and I developed a very, very dark depression after that,” she said.

Friends, family, coaches and a therapist helped her emerge from those dark days. Back to the track she went.

In 2021, she set the college record with a jump of 7.14 meters (23 feet, 5 ¼ inches). Her career started taking off.

“It took track coming back into my life to show me what my purpose is," she said. “I want to live out a dream and reach a goal.”

Who's that guy?

Tara's move to Arkansas to live with Hunter was a few years in the making. The encounter that set her on that path came at an indoor track meet in Pocatello, Idaho.

Standing near the track one day, a runner caught Tara’s eye. He was wearing sweatpants, so she didn’t notice his prosthetics at first. She kept hearing the announcer talking about “Hunter Woodhall." Soon, she realized the man she’d been keeping an eye on was that very same Hunter Woodhall.

A little later, Tara placed herself strategically so she could intercept Hunter at the spot where the athletes exited the track after they raced.

“I stepped onto the track and said, ’I don’t know why I have to do this, but I have to give you a hug,” Tara says. “He was like, ‘OK.’ He was very taken aback. And that was the first time we talked.”

They were married a few years later, on Oct. 16, 2022.

Just another runner

Hunter was born with a birth defect that left him without fibulas in either leg. Some doctors told his parents their son would be in a wheelchair all his life.

Others suggested amputation below the knee was a better path; that surgery happened when Hunter was 11 months old.

“They did it around the time I would’ve naturally started walking," Hunter said. “I think I was like ‘This is your body and you’ve got to do it this way.'"

When he was 11, Hunter's parents found prosthetics that made running possible. Not long after that, it became obvious that he was fast. Not fast for a kid with no legs, but fast-fast.

At 17, he won silver and bronze medals at the 2016 Paralympics in the 200 and 400 meters. Soon after, the University of Arkansas made Woodhall the first double amputee to earn a Division I scholarship in track.

He was part of Arkansas’ able-bodied track team from 2018-2020 where he was an All-American twice on the 4x400 relay team.

When COVID shut things down, a confluence of events — centered around NCAA demands that Woodhall shut down some of the business deals he had cut in the pre-NIL era — led him to cut short his college career.

“Bad luck,” Hunter said. “Or maybe not bad luck. I mean, we ended up in a pretty good spot.”

Punching the ticket

It's one thing to plan for the Olympics — completely different to get there.

U.S. track and field trials is among the most brutal sporting events out there because even an athlete like Davis-Woodhall, who regularly jumps 7 meters and hasn't lost a meet all year, is guaranteed nothing.

She needed a top-three finish to qualify for Paris and came into the trials with a bruise (at best) or a hairline fracture (at worst) in her heel. In the finals, she stepped over the take-off board on her first two jumps. One more scratch and her Olympic dreams would be over.

Lining up for the third jump, Tara glared down the runway, took a big breath, and took off for the jump that would decide her season.

She lifted off from behind the board and jumped 6.64 meters — pedestrian by her standards, but enough to earn three more chances in the final. Standing up from the sand, she covered her heart with her hands, walked to the track and dropped to her knees.

“One of the scariest moments of my career,” she called it.

Given three more jumps, she soared an even 7 meters on the second to secure the win.

“I asked her this morning if she was going to try to take an easy one to start. She said ”No, I'm sending it from the start,'" Hunter said afterward. “I said ”OK, whatever works.' ... (Expletive) stressful."

Three hours after her win, the victory party had moved to a landmark bar near the University of Oregon campus called Wild Duck Cafe.

Tara, still in her blue jumping uniform and wearing her black cowboy hat along with the gold medal from trials, stood on a stage and answered questions from fans in the crowd.

Someone asked her how she felt after such a stressful day — the day that came dangerously close to ending her quest, but ultimately kept her very much in line for the big goal: the Olympic gold medal.

Holding the microphone, she thought for a second.

“The year that I'm having right now," she said, “honestly, I'm living out my dream.”