Triple jump champion Thea LaFond on winning Dominica's first Olympic medal: 'It's a really big deal'

SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — Sometimes, all it takes is one athlete.

In March, triple jumper Thea LaFond was the only representative of her tiny Caribbean nation, Dominica, at world indoors.

She won the gold medal.

Now at the Paris Olympics, LaFond is the only woman from her country competing in track and field.

Again, she won gold.

Only it was more than gold. It was the very first Olympic medal for Dominica.

“It’s an understatement to say it’s a really big deal,” LaFond said after her victory Saturday night at the Stade de France. “Sometimes you wonder if being from a small country means that you have less accessibility to resources. … But we’ve been really big on (prioritizing) quality and just executing it.”

LaFond left Dominica for the United States when she was 5 and now lives in Maryland. But she’s still ambassador for her birth nation.

“My country’s name is Dominica (dah-min-EE-ka). We’re not Dominican Republic, so it’s pronounced differently,” LaFond said. “We are about roughly 70,000 people. Not 7 million. Not 70 million. Seventy thousand. And it is a gorgeous, gorgeous gem in the Caribbean near to Martinique and Guadeloupe. … Our neighbors also include St. Lucia, Barbados and, further south, Trinidad and Tobago. Our primary language is English. And now they have a gold medal.”

Dominica wasn’t the only Caribbean island to earn its first Olympic medal on Saturday. Julien Alfred of St. Lucia won the 100-meter title.

In 2017, 90% of the homes on Dominica were damaged by Hurricane Maria and 31 people died.

There are virtually no facilities for track and field on the island. Plans to build a track have been stalled for years, LaFond said.

“The biggest issue has been getting the land allocation for this track. Give us the land and there will be a track,” LaFond said. “I’m really hoping this medal kind of lights a fire under all government officials to get that done. I want a place where the next generation doesn’t necessarily have to go overseas.”

After her move to the U.S., LaFond developed into a classically trained dancer. She gave up dance at 13 when her family couldn’t afford lessons anymore and discovered track and field at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, and went on to compete at the University of Maryland.

When she made her Olympic debut in 2016, she was introduced to Aaron Gadson, who became her coach and then her husband. Gadson’s first big advice for LaFond involved a big change to her jumping technique.

LaFond had leaped off her right leg since she was a teenager. Gadson thought she was stronger jumping off her left leg, though, so they made the change.

“It’s basically teaching your body how to jump again,” LaFond said. “There were some very frustrating days.”

Gadson had some more invaluable advice in Paris after LaFond leaped 14.32 meters on her first jump: “He came to me and he said, ’Listen, there is torrential downpour coming in 20 minutes. You have to do something big now because the weather is not going to be on your side.'”

LaFond leaped 15.02 on her second attempt, which was the winning jump. As Gadson predicted, the storm then came and nobody else could come close in the wet conditions.

“We had to put it together right then and there,” LaFond said.

Shanieka Ricketts of Jamaica took silver at 14.87 and Jasmine Moore of the U.S. got bronze at 14.67.

Missing from the competition was world-record holder and defending Olympic champion Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela, who was out with an Achilles tendon injury.

Besides celebrations on Dominica, LaFond’s victory sparked jubilation at a Navy football preseason practice session when the news was communicated to Chreign LaFond, Thea’s younger brother and a junior defensive end with the Midshipmen.

Navy shared on social media a video of his teammates jumping all over Chreign.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games