U.S. long jump queen Tara Davis-Woodhall eased into the final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Saturday (13 September).
The reigning Olympic champion is on the hunt for a maiden world title in the sandpit as she looks to upgrade her silver from the previous edition in Budapest in 2023.
The 26-year-old wasted no time or energy in the qualifying round of her pet event with her first jump clearance of 6.88 metres. The final cut-off distance was set at 6.75m.
Her gold-medal hopes were given a boost after Italy’s Larissa Iapichino, who along with Davis-Woodhall jumped beyond seven metres this season, failed to qualify for the final.
One of the few women to breach the seven-metre mark this season, France’s Hilary Kpatcha, safely navigated into the final with a second-round attempt of 6.85m.
Germany’s two-time world champion Malaika Mihambo battled to find her rhythm with one legal jump of 6.63m but managed to scrape through among the top-12 jumpers in the qualifying rounds.
Davis-Woodhall arrived in Tokyo as the title favourite, boasting a mammoth world-leading jump of 7.12m from the US Championships in July.
The horizontal jumps star has taken a conservative approach this season, competing at four events in the build-up to the championships. Highlighting her status as the athlete to beat, Davis-Woodhall has not lost a long jump competition since her silver medal at the 2023 World Championships.