If not for an event held annually in Pocatello, it’s possible the world would have never had the chance to embrace the track and field power couple who took the internet by storm during the 2024 Paris Olympics in August.
When 25-year-old Tara Davis-Woodhall secured her first gold medal on Aug. 8 for women’s long jump at the 2024 Paris Olympics, millions of people watched an Instagram video of her leaping into the arms of her husband, 25-year-old Hunter Woodhall, just after he emphatically shouted, “You’re the Olympic champion!”
Less than one month later, Woodhall on Sept. 6 would bring home some shiny hardware of his own when he won gold in the Paralympic men's 400-meter T62.
While it’s probable that both Davis-Woodhall and Woodhall, being the incredible athletes that they are, could have accomplished these feats independently, doing so as partners cemented their legacy in the history books as the first married couple to win gold medals in the same Olympics and Paralympics.
And it may have never happened had it not been for the Simplot Games, one of the nation’s premier high school indoor track and field events held annually at Idaho State University.
“They actually met at the Simplot Games in 2017, with him coming from Utah and her coming from California,” said Barb Woodhall, Hunter’s mother who lives in Fish Haven, a small community along the shores of the Bear Lake near the Utah border. “He thought she was out of his league but he told his friend that he was going to marry her. Then she actually slid into his DMs.”
Much like 2024, both Hunter and Davis-Woodhall were winners when they met at the Games in 2017, with Hunter placing first in the boys 400-meter and Davis-Woodhall grabbing first in the girls long jump. She ran over and hugged him right after his victory and he later tried to track her down inside the ICCU Dome, known then as Holt Arena, but chickened out when he saw she was with her parents and grandparents, the pair explained in a video posted to their YouTube channel .
The dynamic duo made history at the 2024 Summer Games, but Barb Woodhall isn’t surprised.
The youngest of three brothers, Hunter never had a chance to know he was any different.
Hunter didn't lose his legs in a shark attack, nor was he struck by 17 buses . He was born with a congenital deficiency called fibular hemimelia that resulted in him missing his fibula bone in one leg, Barb said.
“The other leg had some of the same issues,” she said. “He had a clubfoot and a fused ankle.”
Hunter at 11-months-old would travel to Shriners Hospitals for Children in Tampa where he would have both legs amputated at the ankles.
“He got his first prosthetics at 15-months and just started walking from there,” Barb said. “He had two older brothers, so he just did everything that they did.”
Before narrowing it down to track and field as a sophomore in high school, Hunter participated in soccer, baseball, football, wrestling, and basketball.”
“He skied a lot, too,” said Barb, who alongside her husband Steve raised their boys in Syracuse, Utah, about 30 miles north of Salt Lake City. “We didn’t treat him any differently, it just took him a little longer is all.”
The elder Woodhalls purchased their home in Fish Haven in 2014 and Hunter would travel with them to Southeast Idaho occasionally, and still does with his wife sometimes, but it’s hard to find a place to train, Barb said.
Both the 200-meter and 400-meter records at Syracuse High still read Hunter’s name, which he set the same year he met Davis-Woodhall. He set it as a senior and a year after participating in his first Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016. He took home bronze in the 400-meter and silver in the 200 that year, Barb said.
“Growing up, one of the reasons he went into track was it was just him,” Barb said. “With team sports there were coaches that would tend not to play him because they thought he might have gotten hurt.”
She continued, “With track, it was just him in the clock. He kind of gravitated more toward something he knew he had control over, an outcome dependent on what he put into it, not what a coach could dictate what he could do,”
Upon graduating in 2017, Hunter started attending the University of Arkansas after becoming the first double amputee to earn an NCAA Division I track and field scholarship.
“There were a lot of unknowns with Hunter’s situation,” Barb said. “There were a lot of questions. How do you work with someone like that? There was a lot that had to be done with the NCAA to get it approved.”
Davis-Woodhall, meanwhile, attended the University of Georgia and then the University of Texas.
In 2021, she jumped 7.14 meters at the Texas Relays in Austin to set the collegiate record. The jump placed her in the top 30 of all time. Hunter would go on to become a three-time All-American in the 4 by 400 meter during his time as a Razorback.
“He had to work really hard, but he did,” Barb said. “He sacrificed a lot to get where he is.”
After years of long-distance dating while attending different universities, Davis-Woodhall moved to Arkansas to be with Hunter after they both graduated. They officially tied the knot in October 2022.
One thing that really stuck with Hunter during his early days in track is when the audience would cheer for him after he placed poorly.
“He was at a track meet in middle school and wasn’t very good but everyone would cheer for him because he was just out there participating — and he didn’t like that,” Barb said. “He wanted them to cheer because he earned something.”
That same determination helped propel Hunter to the top of the podium this year.
After taking home bronze and silver in Rio in 2016, Hunter would again get bronze in the 400 in Tokyo in 2020.
“This win in Paris was emotional for him for multiple reasons,” Barb said. “The same guys had beaten him every time since Rio. And the last time he was in the Paralympics it was basically like a practice because of COVID. If he won nobody was there to celebrate with him and nobody was there to console him if he lost.”
She continued, “He has been chasing this gold since Rio and the things that he and his wife did this year to prepare, it was just a validation. They knew they had done everything they could possibly do to get where they needed to be, so when it happened it was very emotional.”
Having someone to celebrate with (a whole entourage of family members and his wife were in Paris to cheer him on earlier this month) was a very different experience than four years ago, Barb added.
“This really was a redemption for him,” she said. “Especially after he had some issues with his prosthetics at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in Paris.”
Now that the dust has settled from the 2024 Summer Games, the couple is enjoying some much needed downtime, Barb said.
Soon the couple will be moving to Kansas to be closer to their mutual trainer, she said. More gold medals in the same year may be on the table, but regardless, you can expect that whatever comes next for the powerful pair, they’ll be doing it together.
“It’s very cool that they're the first married couple to both earn a gold medal in the same Olympics and Paralympic Games,” Barb said. “That’s a rare thing. But it’s not unlike their lives. They do everything together. They train together, they eat together, they work out together, and they're on the same page, 100 percent of the time.”
She continued, “He works just as hard as her, if not harder. They're there to support each other and just always there to motivate each other and support each other.”
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