Tara Davis-Woodhall Ends Her 2026 Season After a Head-On Crash

Tara Davis-Woodhall has ended her 2026 season and will not jump at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest on Friday, where the American was entered as both the reigning Olympic and reigning world long jump champion. She also comes off the card for Athlos London on Sept. 18. A head-on collision in late August left her with a severe concussion, and she has not trained since.

She made the announcement on Instagram on Monday, in a post AFP also carried. “Did not think I’d be making this post,” she wrote. “After careful consideration with my team, we have decided to end the 2026 season. This one hurts. I’m sad, disappointed and just hurt by all of it.” The post ends with a promise she put in capital letters, “I WILL BE BACK,” though she gave no indication of when.

World Athletics published its final entry lists the same day, and her name is not on any them. The women’s long jump still lists eight jumpers: Larissa Iapichino of Italy, the Americans Alyssa Jones, Monae’ Nichols and Claire Bryant, Agate de Sousa of Portugal, Hilary Kpatcha of France, Jazmin Sawyers of Britain and Marthe Koala of Burkina Faso.

Davis-Woodhall won the Olympic title in Paris in 2024 with 7.10m and the world title in Tokyo last September with 7.13m, which means one withdrawal takes both reigning champions out of the field. Her 7.20m at the Los Angeles Grand Prix on June 14 is still the best jump in the world this year, and she ran a 12.47 personal best in the 100m hurdles on the same afternoon. Nobody left in Budapest has gone beyond Iapichino’s 7.12m, eight centimeters back.

Nichols earned her place on Saturday by winning the Diamond League Final in Brussels, where 6.91m was enough to hold off Iapichino. Jones has the second-best mark in the field at 7.09m and the U.S. title to go with it, won on July 26 in New York on the afternoon Davis-Woodhall’s final-round 7.16m was ruled a foul after a protest. That decision, upheld on appeal, ended a run of 18 straight wins.

Four routes led to Budapest: the Paris Olympic title, the Tokyo world title, a win at the Diamond League Final and the world rankings over the past 12 months. Davis-Woodhall qualified on two of them. World Athletics also held one discretionary entry per event in reserve for an athlete who had missed out, and that window shut on Aug. 17.

The two meets carry $215,000 in winner’s money between them. Budapest pays $150,000 to each individual champion out of a record $10 million pot, and in a field of eight even last place is worth $10,000. Athlos London pays $65,000 to win and $6,000 for sixth, on a card headed by Keely Hodgkinson that also includes Sha’Carri Richardson and Gabby Thomas.

That London meet has become the only one Athlos will stage this year, after the series cancelled its Oct. 2 date in New York last month. Athlos said at the time that it wants its events inside the global athletics calendar from 2027 rather than after it.

Davis-Woodhall said on Sept. 2 that she was working with her team and her doctors, and Monday’s post added nothing about her recovery. The women’s long jump final opens the championship on Friday evening in Budapest, in a session running from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. local time.