Thea LaFond-Gadson: Maryland's Golden Girl

Maryland will recognize 2024 Olympic Gold medalist Thea LaFond-Gadson during the first quarter of the Terps' football game against Northwestern on Friday night at SECU Stadium.

Peer pressure often leads young, impressionable teens to make the wrong decisions. But for Thea LaFond-Gadson, it led to her breaking national records and making history at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Aug. 3. 

The former Maryland track and field star squatted down and screamed at the top of her lungs in celebration at Stade de France. She was accompanied by thousands of fans cheering and clapping their hands. The first person she greeted with an emotional hug was her husband and coach, Aaron Gadson.

Representing Dominica, a Caribbean island with a population of approximately 70,000 people, LaFond had won the triple jump gold medal. She posted a mark of 15.02 meters (49 feet, 3.5 inches) — a national record in the event — to become the first Maryland track and field alum to medal in the Olympics. She was also the first to earn an Olympic medal for her country.

The historic accomplishment changed her life and made her a hero in her country. However, her journey to get there involved overcoming improbability and constant hurdles. LaFond and Gadson discussed her journey in Joe Yasharoff's sports producing class in Knight Hall on Sept. 11.

“I think because of the age we are in with social media, people see the highlights all the time,” Gadson said. “She gets the medal, you see the medal, it's glorious and it's awesome, right? But behind that, there’s a ton of work. Even the first year that she qualified for the World Championships, we literally were training at a high school. We were training in high school hallways with a rubber rollout and little cheer mats.” 

Above all, LaFond takes pride in representing the two places that have always been a part of her: Dominica and Maryland. 

“It's great to be from an institution that's such a pillar in the community, especially in the state of Maryland on the East Coast,” LaFond said. “It's been really an honor, being the face of that. … I just really hope that it brings a sense of pride to everyone. For Dominicans, for Marylanders and for Terps in general.”

Against All Odds 

LaFond grew up in a country that doesn’t contain a single track on its 290 square miles of land. Often confused with the Dominican Republic, Dominica lies in the Windward Islands, halfway between Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago. According to Global Finance Magazine, it's the 80th poorest country in the world, with a GDP per capita of just 15,280. Furthermore, the island is slightly smaller than New York City. 

The Olympic gold medalist grew up in the country’s capital, Roseau. She immigrated to the United States and lived in New Jersey for two years. When she was 7, she relocated to Silver Spring, Md. because her father got a job at the U.S. Agriculture Department. Her mother became a professor. Still, she and her family returned to visit Dominica every summer.

LaFond didn’t start competing in track and field until she attended John F. Kennedy High School. She started for a myriad of reasons, none more significant than the art of peer pressure. Her friends convinced her to join the team, but her mother also had a rule that she couldn’t come home right after school. Mom and Dad weren’t home until hours later, as they both worked and feared their daughter would throw parties or simply do something she shouldn’t when they were gone. 

Before joining the Cavaliers’ track and field team, LaFond debated becoming a basketball team manager or cheerleader. 

“The only reason I joined track was because all my best friends were doing it,” LaFond said. “I remember the basketball coach was like, ‘You need to figure out something. You’re actually really athletic, and I'm not having you as a manager.’ He turned me down because he said I was wasting talent. … All my friends were like, ‘Girl, just come run track.’ I was like, ‘What’s track?’”

LaFond joined the team and quickly became a star. Her background as a dancer helped her take criticism while teaching her discipline, timing, awareness and flexibility, which are required to be a successful jumper. 

She won numerous state and county titles in the 100m hurdles, 55m hurdles, high jump, long jump and triple jump. She was also an All-Met selection by the Washington Post and a New Balance National Champion in the triple jump. 

LaFond was one of the top jumpers in the nation but considered herself “naive” about the college recruiting process. Despite living roughly 15 minutes from the university, she never applied to Maryland and instead verbally committed to one of its future Big Ten rivals, Penn State. 

“I had like two crates filled with recruitment letters,” LaFond said. “I didn't know where I wanted to go. I knew I could go to Penn State after I verbally committed. However, they only offered me like 20% at that point, and I was the third-best jumper in the nation. So to me, it was like a backhand.”

The same basketball coach who didn’t allow her to become a student manager convinced LaFond to consider Maryland a possible destination. Maryland was doing well in the ACC then under Head Coach Andrew Valmon and assistant Frank Costello. LaFond visited its campus for a day and instantly loved it. 

The next day, while LaFond sat in her high school track coach’s office, she determined she wanted to be Terp. The coach contacted Valmon, and the interest was mutual. However, because she had never applied to Maryland, the school had to fax her an admission document, which she signed and returned through fax. 

“We thought originally that she didn't want to stay in state,” Valmon said. “Then we thought this would be a great story to have her leave a legacy because she had a lot of upside. We felt she could do multiple jumps, so we went hard to get her. … Academically, athletically, what she brought to the table from a leadership standpoint was tremendous. We didn’t put any limitations on what she could bring to the table.”

LaFond continued to blossom as a student-athlete at Maryland, competing in the heptathlon from 2012-15. She was named the Mid-Atlantic and Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year in 2015. She even boasted eight All-American honors in the pentathlon, triple jump and high jump (indoor and outdoor). 

Regarding outdoor competition, LaFond was the 2015 Big Ten champion in the triple jump, posting a 44’ 2.75” leap that remains a program record. She was named to the All-Big Ten First Team by default. She was also All-ACC in 2013 and 2014.

As far as indoor competition, LaFond was the 2013 ACC champion in the pentathlon with a score of 4,111. The following year, she defended her title by improving her score to 4,222. She even added an ACC title in the triple jump with a 43’ 6.50” leap. Furthermore, LaFond was named All-ACC in 2013 and All-Big Ten in 2015. 

LaFond repeatedly left her mark in Maryland’s program record book. Many of her indoor and outdoor competition scores still rank among the best.

“She had the pieces to go to the next level,” Valmon said. “You have to be mind, body and soul. You have to have all three, and you have to be grounded. … The key for us is when she was high jumping as high as our high jumpers and was primarily a triple jumper.”

The Making of a Champion 

It didn’t become clear to LaFond that she could make a career out of her athletic abilities until she was a 21-year-old senior at Maryland. Before then, she had always set short-term goals for herself. 

“This wasn't something that I knew I wanted to do since I was 8 years old or even 13,” LaFond said. “I was really present almost every year in the sport. And then I realized, I think I could do this.”

Once she graduated, LaFond began focusing on the triple jump. She competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics but placed last among 37 competitors. She contacted a friend for help and was introduced to her coach and future husband, Aaron Gadson. LaFond was coaching at Northwest High School, while Gadson was coaching at Winston Churchill High School. 

“We're both pretty reasonable people,” Gadson said. “I think that made things easy, at least initially. Thea came into the coaching environment as someone that's like, ‘Look, what I was doing before, I didn't like. What I'm doing here, I'm going to be 100% invested in. I'm going to 100% trust you and what we're doing.’ There was never any question about what we were doing or second guessing.”

To further fund her dream of becoming an Olympic medalist, she also began teaching at John F. Kennedy High School. LaFond taught in the Montgomery County School system for six years while training and competing internationally. 

She taught physical education, general education and special education courses. LaFond’s typical day started by waking up at 5 a.m. to lift. After a full day of work, she would then practice. Weekends consisted of traveling, often internationally, and flying back to start the week on Monday. 

“I look back at it, and it's literally insane to think about,” LaFond said. “I don't understand how I did it truly.”

LaFond first reached the podium in an international competition at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia. She made history, becoming the first Dominican athlete to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games after securing a bronze medal in the women's triple jump. 

She followed her performance at the Commonwealth Games with a silver medal at the 2022 games in the United Kingdom. She was steadily improving, and unbeknownst to her, the best year of her career was ahead. 

Paris 2024 was LaFond's third Olympic appearance. She competed in 2016 Rio and 2021 Tokyo. She placed 12th in Tokyo but says those Olympic games took a mental toll on her.   

“You go through breakups, you go through disappointments, you go through deaths in the family, all of that,” LaFond said. “I think nothing compared with truly being disappointed in myself. That was a different level of sadness for me, and I struggled to get out of that. I was hiding to cry, even from him (Aaron). At one point, I just broke.”

LaFond received help from a sports psychologist with the goal of no longer needing their help. She met with her psychologist bi-weekly for the first month and eventually once every month. However, she has only met with her once in 2024. 

The Olympian became the first person from Dominica to win gold at the 2024 World Indoor Championships in Glasgow when she set a national record in the triple jump with a 15.01-meter leap. 

Five months later, LaFond was in Paris. But adversity struck yet again. In February, ahead of the World Indoor Championships, she sustained a knee injury. She got an MRI scan of her knee, which found a minor fracture in her cartilage. She could either stop jumping for three months and miss the Olympics or deal with it afterward. LaFond chose the latter, and although it became inflamed in Paris, she won gold. 

“The mentality was that I wanted that gold,” LaFond said. “If it took blowing my knee apart, then so be it. [An] Olympic medal changes your life. Olympic gold sets your life up for success.”

Her head coach at Maryland, Coach Valmon, was in attendance to watch his former student-athlete make history. The Terps’ Associate Head Coach for Middle Distance and Cross Country, Danielle Siebert, was also in attendance as a head manager for Team USA. 

“Full circle,” Valmon said. “From my standpoint, I sat in the stands with my daughter and my family. It wasn't about wearing a Maryland hat and running up and saying, ‘Go Thea!’ just because she went to Maryland. We were proud of her, but that was Thea's moment.”

LaFond had knee surgery just two days after becoming the world champion. She says her doctor poked the fracture, and a chip of her cartilage broke off. She’s been on crutches ever since.  

The government of Dominica rewarded La Fond with $400,000, an appointment as a national sports ambassador, a diplomatic passport and a 7,459-square-foot parcel of land in the village of Warner, Saint Paul Parish. A track and field facility will be built and named in her honor. She was also granted the Dominica Award of Honor during Independence Day celebrations in early November.

“My country embracing me has been ongoing,” LaFond said. “I've been competing for them since I was 16. To finally bring home two golds in one year was phenomenal. It was the most unified I've ever seen my country.”

LaFond is even taking matters into her own hands to support the country that has shown her unconditional love. She says she’s working to get field facilities in her mother’s home village. By Christmas, she’s also hoping to purchase shoes for many children on the island. She recalls an athletic day being held, during which many children under 14 participated without shoes because they didn’t have the money to purchase them.

The Olympic gold medalist will be honored during Friday's first quarter of Maryland football’s matchup against Northwestern. She’s also serving as Grand Marshal for the university’s annual Homecoming, which takes place Oct. 13-19. LaFond’s story is one of impossibility. Yet she found a way to take home one of the world’s most prestigious honors. She made her message known to young children with big dreams. 

“For little kids especially, the girls in sport that often lose interest around puberty, especially for little brown girls or immigrant girls, or just the children of my country … I want them to know that you can do it,” LaFond said. “So many times we tell children that they can do anything they want, but it's so difficult to truly have them believe in that if they've never seen anyone that looks like them achieve it.”