Tara Davis-Woodhall emerged victorious at the 2026 Prefontaine Classic, finishing one centimetre ahead of Italy’s Larissa Iapichino. The victory extended an incredible streak, as she has not lost a long jump competition since the 2023 World Athletics Championships, where she claimed silver. She now has 18 consecutive victories. But after winning in Oregon, Davis-Woodhall did not focus on the competition or her remarkable streak. Instead, she opened up about her mental health struggles. Davis-Woodhall spoke about how she could barely picture herself even being there.

“Just ⁠to get here was a struggle this ​week,” Davis-Woodhall said, according to Reuters. “We’re dealing with some ​mental health problems. Just, you know, I have depression. I have anxiety. This week was really difficult.

“I couldn’t fathom just being here ​for some reason. ​I couldn’t ⁠get myself to, like, envision it.  So the fact that I ​showed up today, the fact that I ​even ⁠gave myself a chance is really big for me, and then to come out with a win, ⁠it ​just puts into perspective that ​I just have to give myself a chance every single time.”

Davis-Woodhall battled Larissa Iapichino throughout the competition without showing any sign of the struggles she was dealing with off the field. Davis-Woodhall opened with a jump of 6.62m in Eugene before Iapichino raised the bar. The Italian soared to a personal best and national record of 7.12m, setting the stage for another seven-meter showdown.

Davis-Woodhall responded immediately. The reigning Olympic champion produced a winning leap of 7.13m, edging Iapichino by just one centimetre. She followed it up with jumps of 7.06m and 7.12m to stay in front. Fellow American Monae’ Nichols also bounced back after a slow start, recording a 7.05m jump on her fourth attempt.

Iapichino could not better her 7.12m effort with her remaining attempts, allowing Davis-Woodhall to claim another victory. The result extended her unbeaten streak in the long jump to 18 competitions, dating back to May 2023. In fact, the last time Davis-Woodhall finished off the podium in a long jump competition was at the Tokyo Olympics. Yet behind that remarkable run, she continued to battle mental health challenges.

Those struggles are nothing new. They date back to her college days, and Davis-Woodhall has been candid about them ever since, especially in recent months.

In fact, now she and her husband, Hunter Woodhall, have become well-known as public speakers in the domain. Her reasoning? She never had a similar role model to look up to as a child. 

“I never had anyone in my sport with [stories about mental health], so I could never relate to anyone. I want to try and be that person,” Woodhall-Davis said in an interview with the USATF Foundation.

Her comments after the Prefontaine Classic reflected that same mindset. Instead of celebrating a milestone victory, she chose to speak openly about the challenges she faced just to make it to the start line. It’s an approach she has developed over the years, one that has transformed not only her performances on the runway but also the way she handles setbacks away from it.

Tara Davis-Woodhall reveals what it takes to be the best

Before her current winning streak, Davis-Woodhall struggled in her signature event. In fact, between 2018 and 2021, the Olympian won just 11 meets. That may sound like a lot, and by most standards it is, but that’s out of the 36 competitions she entered during that span. It included a tough 2018 season, when the now 27-year-old won just three of her 14 meets.

This was not what Davis-Woodhall expected from herself. And it forced her to change her mindset. That marked the turning point in her career, as she admitted in an interview with Boomi 2025.

“Everything takes time,” Davis-Woodhall said. “It takes time to get good at what you’re doing. It takes time to be the best. Things just don’t happen overnight. It took time for me to get to this point. You’re not going to see me get a world record overnight. But when you take the time with hard work, it’s going to pay off eventually.”

Now she’s a history-maker. The 27-year-old still remains unbeaten in the long jump and is the only woman since 2019 to break into the top twenty all-time. Her personal best of 7.20m remains a distant twentieth off Galina Chistyakova’s 7.52m record. And yet, it’s the best leap a woman has achieved in the 2020s. More importantly, that mindset change also led Davis-Woodhall to become more cognisant of her mental health.

“Probably our biggest enemy in dealing with mental health is when you don’t speak about what you’re feeling. It just absorbs your mind and takes over. The advice I give to anyone struggling in silence is to talk about it. Write it down in your journal,” she added.

“Just get it out of your head. Why do we have to sit here and beat ourselves up? We just have to be better at loving ourselves and allowing ourselves to make mistakes and to learn and grow and just be a human.”

The victory extended her unbeaten run, but it wasn’t the achievement Tara Davis-Woodhall walked away thinking about most. This time, simply giving herself the chance to compete was the win she valued most.