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Kevin Sherrington: Two Texas-raised girls Jasmine Moore, Tara Davis-Woodhall are now Olympic medalists

By Kevin Sherrington

Kevin Sherrington: Two Texas-raised girls Jasmine Moore, Tara Davis-Woodhall are now Olympic medalists

SAINT-DENIS, France -- Her gold medal assured and tears in her eyes, Tara Davis-Woodhall went through the motions on her last long jump Thursday to see if there was any history in her. Her duty done, she stood up, opened her arms and let the love of Stade de France roll down on her until she fell backwards into the pit, a load lifted at last.

Nothing could upstage the moment she'd envisioned since she was a kid growing up in Frisco.

Nothing except maybe the woman she's known since they were girls on Texas' track circuit.

Jasmine Moore followed up her bronze medal in the triple jump last week with another in the long jump, becoming the first American woman to do so and only the second female in Olympic history.

"You're incredible!" Davis-Woodhall said, turning to Moore at the medalists' news conference.

"History-making!"

The pair's "Texas-raised" history, Davis-Woodhall added, puts a Lone Star spin on the tale of the two women bracketing the long jump medal stand Thursday. A couple of small-town Texas girls coming up big on the world's grandest stage.

Which is where any and all similarities between the gold and bronze winners end.

"Polar opposite," Moore said.

"Yeah," Davis-Woodhall said.

"Definitely."

A short video of Davis-Woodhall at the track Thursday: Here she is minutes before the competition starts, planting a kiss on her husband, Paralympian Hunter Woodall; now yelling encouragement at the U.S.' Nikki Hiltz as she races past in the 1,500 meters; preening in front of the camera; blowing kisses at the crowd; clapping to get the audience revved up; bobbing and barking and basically doing everything possible to draw attention to her and her favorite event.

Moore would have been just fine if everyone had gotten up for the concession stand.

Another short video, this time from the Olympic Trials, where Moore is on the medal stand after winning the triple jump:

Her parents, Earl and Trinette, are beside themselves in Eugene, Wash. They have waited for this moment since making her practice with a track coach on her 11th birthday, an incident famous in the Moore household because Jasmine called her grandmother to report the child abuse. That their faith in their youngest daughter's potential has been rewarded makes them practically apoplectic. A bit too much, apparently, for Jasmine's liking.

"She's up there pulling her finger across her throat," Trinette said, "telling us to cut it out."

Davis-Woodhall's path to the podium Thursday was as different from Moore's as their personalities. Moore grew up in Grand Prairie and starred at Mansfield Lake Ridge before competing first at Georgia and then Florida. Davis-Woodhall left Frisco for high school in California, then Georgia and finally the University of Texas for a life-changing moment in the fall of 2020.

Despondent at being unable to compete because of transfer rules and a fractured vertebrae, she sunk into such depression that she didn't leave her room for a week.

"I did not want to be here," she said Thursday. "I couldn't see myself being an Olympic champion.

"Up until the day I stepped out of that bed and I was like, 'I'm gonna do this.' "

First thing she did was set the collegiate record in the long jump at the Texas Relays, then qualified for the 2020 Olympics, finishing sixth. Looking back, she realizes she was a college kid on a lark in Tokyo. She's better focused now. Even credits a new dietary regimen heavy on red meat for improving her conditioning.

On her first jump Thursday, she posted 6.93, setting the tone. Then Moore did her one better at 6.96.

Turning to look for her score, Moore raised both hands to her face, then overhead before just as quickly lowering them again, her equivalent of a cartwheel.

The rest of the time she looks like someone waiting to be audited. A picture of self-doubt. She'd previously admitted during the Games that, only a couple of weeks ago, she wanted to drop the triple jump and concentrate on the long jump. Her coach, Nic Petersen, talked her out of it, as did her parents, who had to remind her that she earned the right to compete in both.

Making history will only feed her confidence, Jasmine said, because she accomplished something "way better than I could have imagined."

Her mother, an All-American long jumper at Florida State, feels some vindication in that.

"It was something she had to prove to herself," she said. "We could see the talent. We'd tell her, 'You look good. You look great.' But she wasn't getting the results in college, and that hurt her confidence.

"We told her she always finds a way."

Of all things Thursday, Davis-Woodhall helped Moore find a little peace. Over the course of their event, they talked, watched other athletes compete, pretty much just enjoyed themselves.

"I think Tara kind of makes me relax a little bit," Moore said. "Our personalities are polar opposite, so it's nice having someone that's kinda more upbeat to be around me because it just helps me chill out."

Through four of the six jumps, it looked like Davis-Woodhall, whose 7.10 was just .01 off the 10th best in Olympic history, and Moore might finish 1-2. Then Germany's Milaika Mihambo leaped 6.98, nudging Moore to third. When Mihambo fouled on her sixth attempt, the party was on.

Davis-Woodhall leaped into her husband's arms, kissed him, then pulled back and screamed, "I did it!" One of Moore's peeps planted a cowboy hat on the champ's head, a nod to her usual headgear at meets, curiously missing until Thursday.

Maybe she was saving it for the celebration.

"Hey, y'all, is this real?" she asked the media waiting for her in the mixed zone. "Am I dreaming? Pinch me. I've been dreaming of this moment for so long. Ever since I was four years old. I have been through hell and back. I have, like, faced everything that you can imagine.

"And I told myself, 'Not today.' "

No, not Thursday, when a couple of women with Texas roots both made the podium. When they heard that Simone Biles and Snoop Dogg had seen it, they giggled like a couple of girls at a sleep-over. They've come a long ways since those days.

©2024 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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