Hunter Woodhall and Tara Davis-Woodhall may have won medals, but they also captured the hearts of millions of Americans.
The track and field stars, already a budding internet sensation, sparked a new wave of admiration after a video of the pair celebrating Davis-Woodhall’s gold win in the women’s long jump went viral during the Paris Games.
The moment was captured as Davis-Woodhall took another leap after winning a 23-foot jump, this time in the arms of her husband, Paralympic champion Hunter Woodhall. Videos of the warm embrace have been viewed millions of times on social media.
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“Baby, you’re the Olympic champion!” Woodhall said into the camera.
“I haven’t been on social media very much, so I don’t know how viral it’s gone!” Davis-Woodhall told People in a recent interview. “Everyone told me the whole world saw it, [but] It’s just Hunter and me.”
Woodhall, a double-amputee sprinter from Syracuse, Utah, will have his own shot at gold at the Paralympics, which opened in Paris on Aug. 28 and run through Sept. 8. Woodhall will compete in the men’s 100 on Sept. 1 and again on Sept. 2 if he qualifies, according to a spokesman. He will also represent Team USA in the men’s 400 and the 4×100 relay on Sept. 6.
Woodhall left Paris on August 11 to complete his preparations and returned to the City of Lights on August 26, the spokesman said. His wife, who was in Rome for the Diamond League in Rome, was due to join Woodhall on Saturday, the spokesman said.
Born with a condition called fibular hemimelia, Woodhall had to undergo amputation to remove the lower part of his legs. Doctors told his parents he would never walk, a prognosis he was determined to defy.
“They said I would never walk, so I learned to run instead,” Woodhall’s Instagram bio reads.
The Paralympic athlete began his athletics career in fifth grade and became the First double amputee athlete to earn D-1 scholarshipcompeting for the University of Arkansas.
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Davis-Woodhall has been immersed in track and field since she was 4 years old, thanks to her family. The youngest of five children, she regularly attended her older siblings’ track meets as a child and became interested in the long jump after watching her sister compete in the event, according to NBC. Davis-Woodhall’s father, Ty Davis, coached her throughout high school, where she set state and national records in the long jump and 100m hurdles. Davis-Woodhall now has an invitational track meet named after her at her high school, according to the spokesperson.
A California native, she attended the University of Georgia before transferring to the University of Texas, where she competed in the long jump and hurdles. She wears a cowboy hat to her competitions to honor her Texas ties.
Davis-Woodhall made her Olympic debut in 2021 at the Tokyo Games after recovering from a series of injuries, including two broken vertebrae, a broken ankle and a broken hip.
“I went through COVID, I figured out who I was and I just listened to my body and what I needed to do for the upcoming season,” she said. told CBS News in 2021. “And luckily, my season went very well.”
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Aside from the long jump, she competed in the 60m and 100m hurdles, triple jump and women’s 200m for USA Track & Field.
The couple’s romance began in 2017, after they met at a high school track meet in Pocatello, Idaho. They recount their first meeting in a YouTube video.
By their accounts, Woodhall came from Utah and Woodhall-Davis from California for an event called the Simplot Games. That’s where the two, both 18 at the time, ran into each other by chance on the track. Woodhall was watching Davis-Woodhall run the hurdles when he texted his friend Tucker, saying, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.” The next day, after Woodhall ran and won the 400m race, Woodhall-Davis greeted him. “I just needed a hug,” Woodhall recalled. “That’s really how we met,” he said.
The two got married in Texas in 2022 and now reside in Arkansas. They run a popular YouTube channel called “Tara and Hunter” that documents their athletic adventures and daily life as a married couple. It currently has 863,000 subscribers.
“Playing the same sport as each other is a different way for me to share our love,” Davis-Woodhall said in an interview shared by CBS Mornings. “We love each other not only as human beings, but as athletes.”
