Hunter Woodhall raised the bar high, and he hasn’t even begun competing in the Paris 2024 Paralympics yet.
Two weeks ago, during the Paris Olympics, the track athlete from Syracuse twitterpated the world with his unbridled joy and exuberant embrace of wife Tara Davis-Woodhall after she won the gold medal in women’s long jump.
“You’re the Olympic champion!” he yelled from the stands right before she leapt into his arms. An Instagram video the couple posted of the moment has garnered more than 1 million likes and 13 million views. A photo posted by Olympics.com with the caption “More than sport” grabbed another 1.6 million likes. The internet is flooded with graphics and memes made of their exchange, many of them anchored with such hashtags as #relationshipsgoals or #perfectcouple.
“It was such a relief and a ‘Finally!’ moment,” Davis-Woodhall told NBC. “I was just looking into his eyes and I didn’t know where I was. I almost blacked out for a second, and he just made the moment so much more special.”
Now it’s Davis-Woodhall’s turn to play the supporting role. Woodhall will compete in the 100- and 400-meter men’s races and possibly the 4x100 at the Paris Paralympics, which begin Tuesday. A double amputee, Woodhall will compete under the T62 and T64 classifications, respectively. He is one of seven athletes from Utah set to compete in the upcoming Paris Games.
Woodhall was born with fibular hemimelia, a disease that inhibits the development of the lower leg. His parents opted to have his legs amputated when he was 11 months. He competed in track for Syracuse High School and met Davis-Woodhall at the 2017 Simplot Games in Idaho, which Woodhall said he almost didn’t attend because of a dance scheduled at his Utah school the same weekend. In a YouTube video the couple posted, both agreed Davis made the first move(s).
(Rana Young | The New York Times) Hunter Woodhall at his home in Fayetteville, Ark., on March 21, 2021.
She hugged him after he won the 400-meter race, messaged him on social media a few weeks post-event and, eventually, drove more than two hours from her home in Ventura, Calif., to where Woodhall was training that June at a United States Olympic and Paralympic facility in San Diego. At that point, Woodhall was already a decorated Paralympian. He took silver in the 200 T44 and bronze in the 400 T44 at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Their lives have been intertwined ever since.
Both competed in the Tokyo Games in 2021, with Woodhall-Davis (then just Davis) taking sixth in the long jump final and Woodhall collecting bronze in the 400. A year later, they got married. If anything, the union has had a positive impact on their performance. He serves as a second coach and “bulls— wall” for Davis during her competitions, he said in an interview with Team USA. In turn, she has been his rock, including when she comforted a distraught Woodhall after one of his blades shattered prior to the 400 final at the 2023 World Championships.
At the Paralympic trials, Woodhall set the American record in the 100 meters in the T62 classification, running it on his carbon-fiber blades in 10.75 seconds. The Paralympic record is the 10.79 seconds run by Tokyo gold medalist Johannes Floors of Germany.
“I definitely don’t think either of us would be at the level we’re at without the level of support that we provide for each other, as well as the team that surrounds us,” Woodhall said in an interview with Team USA prior to the Paris Olympics. “As far as the success, it’s super motivating because we do the same things every day. It’s just a vote of confidence knowing that we’re doing the right things together.”
Davis-Woodhall will join Utah’s Dani Aravich, who has competed in both the Summer and Winter Paralympics, and other athletes in Paris as a content creator for the USOPC. When his first race begins, though, she undoubtedly will be cheering fervently from the stands.
Woodhall’s goal is to bring home a gold medal to match his wife’s. That may be even more of a challenge after he announced on Threads on Aug. 15 that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Still, he enters these Games having already claimed his prize. Last week, he posted on his Instagram account a video of him trying on Hunter-Woodhall’s medal.
“Sometimes it’s hard,” he said, “being the champion, you know?”
He titled the reel: If marrying up was an Olympic sport.
Utah’s Paralympic Athletes
David Blair, Discus (Davis High; Weber State University; Eagle Mountain resident): Blair, who has a club foot, threw hammer, shot and discus for Weber State track and field. He brought home a gold medal from the Rio 2016 Paralympics and finished fourth at the Tokyo Games despite a torn meniscus. He enters Paris having won gold at the 2023 and 2024 World Championships in the F64 class.
Competition date: Sept. 5, 11:04 a.m. MDT
Hunter Woodhall, 400m, 100m, 4x100m (Syracuse High): Woodhall, who had both legs amputated below the knee, will be chasing gold after bringing home a silver and two bronze from his last two Paralympics. At the 2024 trials, he set the American record for the 100 meters on blades in 10.75 seconds, but his best event has historically been the 400. He competes in the T62 classification in the 100 and the T64 in the 400.
Competition dates: Men’s T44 100 - Aug. 31, 11:20 a.m.; Final Sept. 1, 11:30 a.m. | Men’s T62 400 - Sept. 6, 11:33 a.m. | 4x100 relay - Sept. 6, 4:54 a.m.; final Sept. 6, 1 p.m.
Dennis Connors (University of Utah), paracycling: Connors returned from three combat tours in Iraq with Ataxia, a condition that causes clumsiness due to poor muscle control. He also had two strokes, the second of which came in 2020 and left him paralyzed on his left side. The Oregon resident, who rides a tricycle, will be competing in his first Paralympics. He is coming off a gold medal performance in road racing at the 2023 World Championships and a fifth-place finish in the individual time trial in the T1-2 division.
Competition dates: Time trial, Sept. 4 | Road race, Sept. 7.
Ali Ibanez, wheelchair basketball (Murray):
Ibanez will be seeking a gold medal in Paris to pair with her bronze from the Tokyo Olympics. She got her start with the Utah Rush, the state’s only competition-level wheelchair basketball team, and now plays for the University of Illinois. She was born with arthrogryposis, which causes the joints in the lower body to stiffen. She uses a wheelchair because, she said, her knees and hips are basically locked into place. She is one of 12 women on the USA’s wheelchair basketball team.
Competition dates: Aug. 30, 8 a.m.; Aug. 31, 10:15 a.m.; Sept. 2, 5:45 a.m.; Sept. 4,6,8.
Garrett Schoonover, fencing (Sandy):
Schoonover will be a busy man in Paris. In April, the single-leg amputee swept the Parafencing National Championships, winning gold in all three fencing styles: foil, épée and sabre. That means in the next two weeks, Schoonover, a member of the Salt City Swords Fencing Club, will compete individually in all three of those styles in the A division as well as in the epee and foil team events.
Competition dates: Men’s sabre, Sept. 3, 5 a.m. to 1:40 p.m.; Men’s foil, Sept. 4, 1 a.m. to 12:40 p.m.; Men’s foil team, Sept. 5, 2 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.; Men’s epee, Sept. 6, 1 a.m. to 12:50 p.m.; Men’s team epee, Sept. 7, 2 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.
Raelene Elam, sitting volleyball (St. George):
Elam will be an alternate on the USA team that won gold at the Tokyo Paralympics. Her right ankle was amputated two years after, while on their way home from a club volleyball tournament, she and her family were in a car accident that left two of her children paralyzed.
Audrey Kim, paraswimming (Olympus High, Salt Lake City):
Kim, who just graduated in May from Olympus High, swims the short- and middle-distance freestyle events in the S10 category. Kim was born with symbrachydactyly, a condition in which a person is born with especially short and sometimes webbed fingers. She will be an alternate for Team USA in Paris.
— Julie Jag
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