Hunter Woodhall and Tara Davis-Woodhall have won medals, yes. But he has also won the hearts of millions of Americans.
The track and field stars, who have become new internet sensations, created a new wave of admiration after a video of the pair celebrating Davis-Woodhall’s gold victory in the women’s long jump went viral during the event. Paris Games.
The moment caught Davis-Woodhall making another jump after her winning leap of 23 feet, this time into the hands of her husband, Paralympic champion Hunter Woodhall. The video of the warm hug has garnered millions of views on social media.
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“Baby, you’re an Olympic champion!” Woodhall was caught speaking on camera.
“I haven’t been on social media that much so I don’t know how viral it will be!” Davis-Woodhall told People during a recent interview. “Everybody told me the whole world saw it, (but) it was just me and Hunter.”
Woodhall, a double amputee sprinter originally from Syracuse, Utah, will have his own chance to win gold during the Paralympics, which kicked off in Paris on August 28 and runs through September 8. According to a spokesman, Woodhall will compete. in 100m people on September 1 and again on September 2 if they qualify. He also represented Team USA in the men’s 400m and 4x100m Universal Relays on September 6.
Woodhall left Paris on August 11 to complete his preparations, and returned to the City of Light on August 26, according to a spokesperson. His wife, who is in Rome for the Roma Diamond League, is scheduled to rejoin Woodhall on Saturday, a spokesman said.
After being born with a condition called fibular hemimelia, Woodhall underwent an amputation to remove his lower leg. Doctors told his parents that he would never walk, a prognosis that they were determined to prove wrong.
“They said I’d never run, so I learned to run,” Woodhall’s Instagram bio says.
Paralympic athletes began their track and field careers in fifth grade and became the first double amputee athlete to receive a D-1 scholarshipcompeting for the University of Arkansas.
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Davis-Woodhall has been enmeshed in the track and field world since the age of 4, thanks to her family. The youngest of five, he attended his brothers’ track regularly as a child and became interested in the long jump after watching his older brother compete in the event, according to NBC. Davis-Woodhall’s father, Ty Davis, coached her through high school, where she set records for the long jump and 100m hurdles at the state and national levels. Davis-Woodhall now has an invitational track at her high school named after her, according to a spokeswoman.
The California native attended the University of Georgia before transferring to the University of Texas where he competed in the long jump and hurdles. He brought a cowboy hat to meet her in honor of his Texas connection.
Davis-Woodhall made her Olympic debut in 2021 at the Tokyo Olympics after recovering from a series of injuries including two broken vertebrae, a broken ankle and a broken hip.
“I’m sitting on COVID, I know who I am and I’m just adjusting myself and what I need to do for the upcoming season,” he told CBS News in 2021. “And fortunately, my season played well.”
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Outside of the long jump, she competed in the women’s 60m and 100m hurdles, triple jump, and 200m for USA Track & Field.
The couple’s romance began in 2017, after meeting at a high school track in Pocatello, Idaho. He recounted their first encounter in a YouTube video.
According to the informant, Woodhall traveled from Utah, and Woodhall-Davis from California for an event called the Simplot Games. There, two people, who were 18 years old, serendipitously caught each other’s eyes on the turf of the track. Woodhall was watching the Davis-Woodhall race when he texted his friend Tucker saying, “This is the girl I’m going to marry.” The next day, after Woodhall ran and won the 400m race, Woodhall-Davis greeted him afterwards. “I just need a hug,” Woodhall remembers her saying. “That’s really how we met,” he said.
The two married in Texas in 2022 and currently live in Arkansas. They run a popular YouTube channel called “Tara and Hunter” documenting their athletic endeavors and daily life as a married couple. It currently has 863,000 subscribers.
“Being in each other’s sports, I think it’s a different way to show love,” Davis-Woodhall said in an interview shared by CBS Mornings. “Not only do we love each other as human beings, we love each other as athletes.”
