SAINT-DENIS, France — One of the coolest scenes in today’s track and field is Tara Davis-Woodhall standing on the end of a runway. Before she sprints down the runway, she uses her contagious spirit to infect the crowd.
Many field athletes lead the crowd in a progressive clap. It’s a tradition. But it’s different when it’s Davis-Woodhall. Something about hers feels less like the middle innings of a minor league game, and more like a major league crowd in the ninth inning of a tight game, they are behind her.
Thursday, it was the 80,000-seat Stade de France, obliging one of the darlings of the field, reciprocating her bounding energy. Davis rode the wave to the seven-foot jump that escaped her three years ago. Two of them.
Davis-Woodhall, who finished sixth in the women’s long jump final in Tokyo, captured gold this time with a maximum distance of 7.10.
She beat defending Olympic champion Malaika Mihambo, 30, of Germany, the only woman to jump further than Davis-Woodhall’s 7.18 meters this season. Mihambo topped out at 6.98 for the silver medal.
At 25 years old, and in her second Olympics, Davis-Woodhall becomes the third American woman in the last four cycles to win gold.
Brittney Reese — who medaled in three straight Olympics before retiring after Tokyo — won gold…
