Tara Davis-Woodhall Speaks on Life Choices Involving Hunter Woodhall Amid New World Record

Even in a stadium packed with thousands, Tara Davis-Woodhall could only see one person. After leaping her way to Olympic gold in the long jump at Paris 2024, she made a beeline for her husband, Hunter Woodhall. Cameras caught her sprinting into his arms before the scoreboard had even gone final. In a city drenched in its own history, the couple added a chapter of their own. Written not just by performance, but by partnership. They weren’t simply celebrating a medal. They were celebrating a promise that had held fast through years of pressure, airports, training blocks, and unspoken sacrifices. But how did it all begin? 

Their story began in a hallway of sorts, at the Simplot Games in Idaho back in 2017. Tara, unprompted and unsure why, gave Hunter a hug just minutes after his 400m run. That gesture, odd in the moment, turned out to be a first step rather than a fluke. The messages followed. Then came the second meeting at Arcadia. By the time they were in college, long-distance calls had replaced casual chats. They were students at different universities, navigating brutal training regimens while trying to keep a relationship alive on borrowed time and competing calendars. Still, the thread never broke. They married in 2022. And today, if one is on the field, the other is just a few steps away.

But the real impact of their relationship has unfolded beyond the podium. Speaking in a joint conversation with Female Quotient two days ago, the couple was asked about how their relationship has influenced their individual journeys. Hunter said plainly, “Every single way imaginable. Every single choice that we made in athletics and life has been like together as a team.” The Tokyo Games, where they lived apart and competed separately, left both athletes with not that amazing performance as Paris. Hunter walked out of Tokyo with a bronze in Men’s 400 m T62, whereas Tara walked out without a medal.

“We both did very bad,” Hunter admitted, without blinking. Tara Davis-Woodhall interrupted him with a laugh, “Not that bad,” but didn’t completely disagree with the point. “Once we got together and made the effort of ‘he’s gonna win, I’m gonna win,’ we both held each other accountable,” she explained. Well, in Paris the duo created history, with Tara clenching her first Olympic gold in long jump and Hunter securing two medals, one gold in 400 m T62 and one bronze in 4×100 m Universal Relay. The results weren’t just the product of training but also the outcome of their love and partnership.

They were no longer two individuals competing beside each other. They became a shared project. As Tara Davis-Woodhall hit the runway in Paris, Hunter was there. Focused, locked in. Likewise, when Hunter was racing in the Paralympic final at Paris, Tara was in the stands, fists clenched, unable to sit still. Surely, their marriage is less a pause from sport than an extension of it. Now they approach goals the same way, side by side. For them, love isn’t a distraction from ambition. It’s the infrastructure that lets it last. And once again, when legends were praising Hunter for hitting the 45-second mark, he did not shy away from crediting his success to his better half. 

Hunter Woodhall breaks the world record and credits his wife, Tara Davis-Woodhall 

There are races, and then there are moments that crystallize the years behind them. For Hunter Woodhall, the latter occurred in Memphis, where his 400m run clocked in at 45.70 seconds, a time that not only rewrote the T62 world record but also fulfilled a dream he had been pursuing for nearly a decade. Amid the celebration, Woodhall’s thoughts turned to his wife, Tara. Her presence, he implied, was not important to his success.

“Grateful for my wife who makes me better every day,” he wrote in reflection, placing her name foremost in a list of acknowledgments that included his team, the sport, and the community surrounding him. It was not a fleeting mention but a quiet cornerstone of his achievement. Woodhall’s pursuit of the sub-46 threshold has been as much emotional as physical, and in naming Tara Davis-Woodhall first, he acknowledged the role she played. The extraordinary result was framed not as a conquest but as a shared victory!