Tara Davis-Woodhall reveals what "fueled" her to perform well on International stage

Tara Davis-Woodhall recently appeared on a podcast hosted by the Olympic champion Noah Lyles, where she spoke about how hate comments motivated her to do better. The long-jump athlete wrapped up her 2024 season after competing at the Rome Diamond League.

Davis-Woodhall had a successful run at the 2024 Summer Games as she won the first Olympic gold medal in long jump. She cleared a distance of 7.10m in the final and defeated the defending champion, Malaika Mihambo, who clinched silver.

Months after this victory, Davis-Woodhall sat in a conversation with Noah Lyles in his podcast, 'Beyond the Records,' where she was asked about how she handled the hate on social media and whether she read all the hate comments. The long-jump athlete revealed that she does read all the comments, and initially it used to hurt her, but eventually it started fueling her.

"It fuels me. It used to hurt me. It used to hurt me so bad. When someone told me that I was not a threat on International stage. I'm not a threat? And there were some things that were like she should just stick to social media because that's her future," said Tara Davis-Woodhall.

Following her Olympic exploits, Davis-Woodhall started a new role as an assistant track and field coach at Kansas State University.

Tara Davis-Woodhall opened up about her plans for the 2025 track and field season

American Olympian Davis-Woodhall (Imsge Source: Getty)

In an interview with PEOPLE magazine after concluding her season, Tara Davis-Woodhall opened up about her mindset for the 2025 track and field season. She said that she wanted to take the feeling of being a reigning Olympic champion of her sport and revealed that there are no specific goals for her currently as she wanted this year to be the year of growth.

"It'll be to just embrace the feeling of being the newly reigning Olympic champion, and just going out and jumping and competing with just the joy of that. There's nothing really hanging over my head anymore of like, 'I need to be this, I need to have this.' 2025 should just be a year of growing and rebuilding of what we did this year,” Tara Davis-Woodhall said.

Tara Davis-Woodhall was recently involved in a controversy with the track legend Michael Johnson, who said that he can only save track but not field with his upcoming track event, Grand Slam Track. The 25-year-old shared a video on her Instagram story, criticizing Johnson for his statements on field events.