Lehigh’s Jeremiah Davis jumping to Paris for Olympics

A long jump from Jeremiah Davis in the US Olympic Trials was a personal best at 8.2 meters. But it might as well been a jump across the Atlantic Ocean.

He finished in first place at the trials and he’s off to the Olympics.

“It was a surreal moment,” Jeremiah explained. “Something that finally came full circle. Like I’ve been to Junior Olympics honestly. Like now I’m going to the real deal.”

Jeremiah also needed a top 30 world ranking to make Team USA. He had to wait a few days, but he got ranked 26th and was bound for Paris.

“Just like a relief,” Jeremiah said. “Like a big ol’ finally you know. Like I said this is something I’ve been working towards for a long time. For it to actually come to fruition, the moment is here.”

Jeremiah’s dad, Jerry, said, “As soon as that moment happened everybody hollered out we need passports! We need plane tickets! We need to find hotels!”

Jeremiah’s journey to his first Olympics started on the track at Dunbar High School with the Olympia Track Club. Jeremiah did it all, from relays to hurdles. But as Jeremiah’s dad explains, his son was hooked on the long jump.

“Every night once we introduced him to long jump, he wouldn’t go home,” Jerry said. “Everybody would leave and go home. Me and him would spend a whole hour out there. Maddette would be ready to cut the lights off. And he be begging her, one more! One more!”

“When he can’t get something he just keeps doing it over and over and over again,” Olympia Track Club coach Maddette Smith said. “Like Jeremiah you know we can come out tomorrow. Do it tomorrow. No I got it I got it. Let me just keep doing it.”

Jeremiah won a gold medal in the Junior Olympics, two state championships at Lehigh and became an 11-time All-American at Florida State. But competing in the Olympics, tops his list of accomplishments, for now.

“My goal is to just become a medalist,” Jeremiah said. “Whether that’s one two or three. And that will be that will be the moment where that’s number one.”