Raised Concerns Over Pay Gap, Tara Davis-Woodhall Reveals Alternate Sport She’d Choose Over Track and Field: “Lot of Money”

“Teacher salaries.” Tara Davis-Woodhall and her Paralympian husband, Hunter Woodhall, have had this one problem in the sport. There’s no money in here for a long jumper and a Paralympian, they say. According to them, they have been getting ‘teacher salaries’ for being track and field athletes. Well, imagine an Olympic and a Paralympic gold medalist voicing such confessions. Naturally, a question arises: so where do they think the grass is greener?

Well, Tara Davis-Woodhall just spilled the beans on that. She and Hunter have previously pointed out things in the sport that no one cared to even think of. They were the ones who realized that Noah Lyles earned $100,000 on social media via a single 50m dash against YouTuber IshowSpeed, which was way more than what he made while winning both the Indoor and the Outdoor World Championships and even the Olympic Games. But there are sports where things seem better. At least financially. And per Tara Davis-Woodhall, those are…

In a YouTube video uploaded by Firefly Recovery on April 10, both Tara and Hunter sat on the hot seat to answer 24 questions. That’s when the Olympic Long Jump Champion gets questioned, “If you had to compete in a sport outside of track and field, what would it be?” Her answer was, “If I had to compete in a sport outside of track and field, I would say gymnastics.” Seconds later, she switched it to, “No, I would say tennis because they have a lot of money. I want to be Coco Gauf…”

Well, the challenges of being a field athlete who gets considerable attention for nearly 10 days every four years at the Olympics are truly difficult. And Tara knows that! In 2024, she made approximately $123,000 from Paris, the NB Grand Prix, the WA indoors, and more. But as per Forbes, in 2024, Coco Gauff’s on-court earnings were approximately $9.4 million. No wonder Tara Davis-Woodhall now thinks that more mainstream sports like gymnastics/ tennis may have fetched her more money.

Plus, the expenses. Well, Tara Davis-Woodhall has spoken time and again of the high expenditures in track and field: “This sport is expensive. Why do we have to go all the way to Europe, spend all this money, and barely get a dime when we come to the States?” she questioned in 2024. In fact, she even narrated an instance when the lack of hiring a track and field agent cost her a whole event. Yes, on the Beyond the Records podcast in January 2025, it was revealed that Tara could not compete in the 2020 Diamond League despite offering to manage her travel and stay on her own because she didn’t hire an agent. But there’s more to it.

Tara Davis-Woodhall’s concerns

Hunter Woodhall once explained how a track and field Olympic medalist can make a $37,500 bonus from the USA’s Olympic body and $50,000 from World Athletics. Well, that barely seems enough, right? Tara Davis-Woodhall agrees. But that WA move? She has appreciated it previously.

When the WA announced the prize money, she reacted candidly, “I mean it’s more money in my bank account. That’s good, that’s evolving.” She even added how, “For World Athletics, this isn’t their area. So to give money up like that, in an area that they arent even sponsoring, they’re just giving money to their athletes. I think that’s pretty cool.”

But yes, this one initiative is not enough. No wonder there appears this clarity in her mind that sports like gymnastics, tennis pay their athletes more than track and field. And the figures make that evident. What do you think of this?