LaFond Outjumps Expectations With World-Leading Mark To Win World Indoor Title

By David Woods for DyeStat

Kim Spir PHOTOS

INTERVIEWS

GLASGOW, Scotland – If World Athletics sought another ambassador for what track and field can do for a person, an athlete, a country, Thea LaFond would be a candidate.

Winning the triple jump Sunday at the World Athletics Indoor Championships was long a destination in a journey that began in the town of Roseau on the island nation of Dominica (pop. 74,000) in the Caribbean.

The 29-year-old former dancer and heptathlete – who went to high school in Silver Spring, Md. – followed a path to the podium pioneered Saturday by 60-meter champion Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia, another small island nation (pop. 179,000).

“I need a one-two punch for the Lesser Antilles,” LaFond said. “Julien was the ‘one.’ I need to be the ‘two.’ Let’s do it.”

She did.

Her second-round distance of 49 feet, 3 inches (15.01m) was good for gold.

Cuba’s Leyanis Perez Hernandez took silver at 48-10.75 (14.90m) and Spain’s Ana Peleteiro-Compaoare bronze at 48-4.75 (14.75m).

Keturah Orji, who trains with LaFond in Maryland, jumped 47-1.50 (14.36). Orji, an eight-time NCAA champion at Georgia, finished fourth in a global championship for a third time.

LaFond said the experience was surreal. She said she expects to awaken in the middle of the night in realization of what she had done.

“I’m going to end up like sobbing in my pajamas,” she said.

LaFond was no college superstar. In her first Olympics, at Rio de Janeiro 2016, she finished 37th in triple jump qualifying – dead last.

“I told myself that I could do better myself, and to become a better representative of Dominica,” she said. “I think that really fuels me.”

At Kennedy High, she was a New Balance Nationals champion in the triple jump and won state titles in five events: 55-meter hurdles, 100-meter hurdles, high jump, long jump, triple jump.

For the Maryland Terrapins, she won the triple jump at both ACC and Big Ten meets, and was an ACC indoor pentathlon champion. Yet she was never higher than fifth at NCAAs, and that was in the indoor high jump in 2015.

A conversation with hurdler Jack Pierce, a 1992 Olympic bronze medalist, influenced her to concentrate on the triple jump. LaFond is coached by her husband, Aaron Gadson.

Before all that, she wanted to be a ballerina.

“When you’re spending four or five hours in front of a mirror, with an instructor telling you how to fix something very technical, you learn how to take criticism,” LaFond said. “You learn how to make these small refinements.

“I think those definitely tumble into track and field. They definitely tumble into triple jump.”

Since high school, she has improved by nearly eight feet.

She wants to be as inspiring in Dominica as Alfred is in Saint Lucia. LaFond said she wept when she saw the sprinter win gold. So, she texted her husband, saying she desperately wanted to do the same.

“His word back to me were like: ‘It’s OK. It’s your turn.’“

Dominica has one other world medal, by former Arkansas triple jumper Jerome Romain, in the 1995 World Championships at Gothenburg, Sweden.

The other gold medal at Sunday’s early session also went to an athlete from an island nation, high jumper Hamish Kerr of New Zealand.

He was three bars and eight centimeters clear of the field, equaling the biggest margin in meet history. Kerr’s jump of 7-8.75 (2.36m) was an Oceania record and tied the highest jump in the world, indoors or outdoors, since January 2023.

Silver and bronze medalists, Shelby McEwen and South Korea’s Sanghyeok Woo, both jumped 7-5.75 (2.28m). Only one medalist in meet history had a lower jump.

“I have mixed emotions now because there will be a target on my back and I know the guys will be coming for me as they come into form outdoors ready for Olympic year,” Kerr said. “But to be jumping this high early season has got to be good."

The 27-year-old Kerr was 10th at last year’s World Championships after a 2022 season in which he won World indoor bronze and Commonwealth Games gold. He stands 6-foot-6, resembling an NBA “stretch four," but said he is no basketball player.

“My coordination is good for high jump. I think we’ll just leave it at that,” he said.

McEwen, also 27, was a 2019 NCAA indoor champion at Alabama. At the outdoor World Championships, he was fifth in 2022 and seventh in 2023. This was his first global medal.

“I love indoors, and this is my best indoor season by far, but I'm looking forward to going to Paris and going to the U.S. Olympic Trials,” McEwen said. “My confidence is just shot through the roof right now.”

The other American, Vernon Turner, finished sixth at 7-4.25 (2.24m).

Contact David Woods at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007