Hunter Woodhall wins gold at Paralympics in men's 400m final weeks after wife's victory at the Olympic Games
Hunter Woodhall and Tara Davis-Woodhall are both officially Paris 2024 gold medalists.
After watching his wife jump to victory at the Paris Olympics, Woodhall, a double-amputee sprinter originally from Syracuse, Utah, won his first Paralympic gold medal Friday during the men's 400m T62 final at the Stade de France, beating out German Paralympic athlete Johannes Floors by just .54 seconds.
Woodhall also competed in the men's 100m qualifying round on Sept. 1 and finals on Sept. 2, and represented Team USA in the men's 4x100m universal relay on Sept. 6.
The Paralympics started on Aug. 28 and run through Sept. 8.
After crossing the finish line at the men's 400m, Woodhall ran over to the crowd to embrace Davis-Woodhall, his wife and No. 1 fan. The moment was reminiscent of the jubilant hug the two shared after Davis-Woodhall won gold in the women's long jump on Aug. 8. Videos of couple's celebration quickly spread on social media, garnering millions of views on social media and stealing hearts everywhere.
"Baby, you're the Olympic champion!" Woodhall was caught saying on camera.
The road to Olympic and Paralympic gold
After being born with a condition called fibular hemimelia, Woodhall had an amputation to remove his lower legs. Doctors told his parents that he would never be able to walk, a prognosis he was determined to prove wrong.
"They said I'd never walk, so I learned to run instead," Woodhall's Instagram bio says.
The Paralympic athlete started his track and field career in the fifth grade and became the first double amputee athlete to earn a D-1 scholarship, competing for the University of Arkansas.
Davis-Woodhall has been enmeshed in the track and field world since age 4, thanks to her family. The youngest of five, she attended her older siblings' track meets regularly as a child and got interested in long jump after seeing her sister take part in the event, according to NBC. Davis-Woodhall's dad, Ty Davis, was her coach all the way through high school, where she set records for long jump and 100m hurdles at both the state and national level. Davis-Woodhall now has a track invitational at her high school named after her, according to the spokesperson.
The California native attended the University of Georgia before transferring to the University of Texas where she competed in long jump and hurdles. She brings a cowboy hat to her meets to honor her Texas ties.
Davis-Woodhall made her Olympic debut in 2021 at the Tokyo Games after recovering from a string of injuries including two broken vertebrae, a broken ankle and a broken hip.
"I sat in COVID, I figured out who I was and just tuned in to my body and what I needed to do for the upcoming season," she told CBS News in 2021. "And luckily, my season played out really well."
Outside of long jump, she's competed in 60m and 100m hurdles, triple jump, and women's 200m for USA Track & Field.
The Woodhalls' love story
The couple's romance began in 2017, after they met at a high school track meet in Pocatello, Idaho. They recount their first encounter in a YouTube video.
According to their telling, Woodhall traveled from Utah, and Woodhall-Davis from California for an event called the Simplot Games. It was there where the two, both 18-years-old at the time, serendipitously caught each others' eyes on the track turf. Woodhall was watching his Davis-Woodhall run the hurdle race when he texted his friend Tucker saying, "This is the girl I'm going to marry." The next day, after the Woodhall ran and won the 400m race, Woodhall-Davis greeted him afterwards. "I just needed a hug," Woodhall recalled her saying. "That's really how we met," he said.
The two tied the knot in Texas in 2022 and now reside in Arkansas. They run a popular YouTube channel called "Tara and Hunter" that documents their athletic ventures and day-to-day life as a married couple. It currently has 863,000 subscribers.
"Being in each other's sport I think that's a different way of sharing our love," said Davis-Woodhall in an interview shared by CBS Mornings. "Not only do we love each other as humans, we love each other as athletes."
