Last month, after winning yet another international triple jump medal for Dominica at the World Track and Field Championships in Tokyo, Thea LaFond traveled to the northern part of the island as they prepared to clear the ground for what she expects to be a life-changing facility.

That medal was a major accomplishment for her. She had fought back from a devastating knee injury, one that almost prevented her from winning Dominica’s first Olympic gold medal in 2024. And while she was proud of that, what was about to happen on the land in front of her had the potential to be even more impactful.

LaFond was born in Dominica, a Caribbean island nation with a population of fewer than 70,000 people. She moved to Silver Spring when she was in elementary school, yet her heart, she said, is always split between the two places. While her influence is felt in both, it’s in her birthplace where she’s really been able to make a difference.

Dominica currently has no track. Runners train on grass fields with lines drawn in white paint to resemble lanes. Once an athlete shows potential, they are sent to elite facilities in neighboring countries, such as Cuba or Jamaica.

Thanks to LaFond’s success, that will no longer be the case.

In a country that’s typically devoted to cricket, participation in track and field has skyrocketed because of LaFond. Road races have grown from 50 to 150 kids in the last year. Participation in school programs has doubled, increasing from 250 kids prior to the 2024 Olympics to 500 now.

“They can identify with someone,” said Brandon Williams, the president of the Dominica Amateur Athletic Association. “So they see that and they think they can do it too.”

With its growing interest and international presence, Dominica has committed to providing its athletes with the facilities they need. By 2027, Dominica hopes to open its first track and field complex, named after none other than LaFond, which the government is funding.

“It’s so exciting, it really is,” LaFond said. “The best part is the young children are so ready and willing and excited and have been signing up to join their sports programs across the island.”

Her journey has had hurdles, from a lack of funding to a near-devastating injury. But she’s overcome it all, and she hopes that future generations will have it easier than she did.

Making her own way

Before she became a national hero in Dominica, LaFond was just a high school teacher in Montgomery County trying to live a double life.

By day, she was a special education teacher at John F. Kennedy High School. Outside of school hours, she was a world-class track and field competitor. She woke up at 5 a.m. every morning to work out, then stayed after school to train even more. Her weekends consisted of flying all over the world, often returning from her destination on Sunday night and then showing up to the classroom Monday morning ready to do it all again.

“It was probably not the healthiest thing to do, especially if I’m trying to optimize performance, but it was just kind of what needed to be done,” LaFond said. “I was just really chasing that dream.”

This job gave her not only a paycheck and health insurance, but also introduced her to the person who would change the trajectory of her life: Aaron Gadson, who at the time was coaching at Churchill. He became her coach, then eventually her husband.

They began working together in October 2016, right after she placed 37th at the Rio Olympics. Immediately, they made a major change in her technique. They decided she should jump like the men.

Male triple jumpers use both arms on their jumps, while women typically only use one, leaving their idle arm at their side. Why, Gadson doesn’t know. The double-arm is the optimal technique. She remains one of the few women to use it, and, as Gadson pointed out, if his high school boys have the strength to use both arms, then women most definitely do, too.

“I’ve always thought that women’s triple jump was a little bit under-optimized compared to the men, and so I just felt like there’s a lot of opportunities for her to get better, a lot of opportunity for everybody to get better, but for whatever reason those other coaches weren’t pushing that,” Gadson said. “I think there was just a testament that women were supposed to jump a certain way, and I just didn’t think that was the case.”

The results were immediate for LaFond. In 2017, she was 19th in the World. In 2021, at the Olympics in Tokyo, she was 12th.

Following the Olympics, she got her big break: a sponsorship from Adidas and increased funding from Dominica. She was able to quit her job and focus entirely on her track career.

“When you take away those concerns for an athlete, you really allow them to thrive,” LaFond said. ”I saw my jumping go to another level.”

In 2023, she finished fifth at the World Championship and third at the Pan American Games. Her career was finally taking off.

Then her knee started to break down.

Olympic gold

On May 3, 2024, exactly three months away from the Paris Olympics, LaFond sat in a surgeon’s office with her physical therapist on the phone.

She had never been in a better spot in her career and was a favorite to win it all that summer. She just had to get there in one piece.

But her surgeon informed her that the cartilage in her knee was severely bruised. To heal it, she needed to stop training, which would take her out of contention for the Olympics.

Before she could even open her mouth, her physical therapist responded for her: Sitting out was simply not an option, her therapist told the surgeon. They just needed to find a way to control the pain as much as possible.

LaFond and her physical therapist devised a way to tape her knee to alleviate some of the pain and modified LaFond’s training routine to reduce the number of repetitions she performed and the impact on her right knee.

But as the date of her event neared, her knee only got worse. She could barely put weight on it at times.

But she said she was willing to sacrifice her knee to achieve her dreams in Paris, no matter how it might impact the rest of her career.

“When I was in the most pain, I remember sending a prayer up saying, ‘If I never jump again, that’s fine, but like God, please just allow me to get to the Olympics safely,’” she said. “Like I don’t even need to send a prayer up right now to win, I just need the opportunity to get there and I will take care of the rest, like, please.”

When Aug. 3 came around, the knee wasn’t on her mind. She wanted to leave it all out on the track, and whatever happened, happened.

Her first jump of 14.32 feet was solid.

Her second, of 15.02 feet, put her in the lead. LaFond’s next three jumps didn’t come close to that mark, but neither did anyone else’s.

As the scoreboard flashed with her name at the top, LaFond raced over to Gadson with tears in her eyes. She had done it. For herself, overcoming what could have been a devastating knee injury, and for her country, becoming the first person to win an Olympic medal for Dominica.

“Seeing, you know, a gold medal put around your neck and your flag being raised is so worth it,” she said. “All the agony, all the times I cried, frustrated that my best of the day wasn’t good enough to land hardware in my sport. What knee? When you are on a podium, your knee doesn’t hurt anymore, I’ll tell you that. It’s unbelievable. I love it for us as a nation.”

Furthering her impact

One month after LaFond won Olympic gold, she traveled back to Dominica to watch children run on their makeshift grass track during the Dominica Amateur Athletic Association’s annual showcase. All of the children were clamoring for autographs and pictures. They all wanted to impress Dominica’s biggest star.

“It was pandemonium,” Williams said. “They just wanted to be in her presence.”

The months after the Olympics were a blur for LaFond. Upon returning from Paris, she had arthroscopic knee surgery, which revealed that her right femur was severely damaged. She wasn’t allowed to put any pressure on her leg for six to eight weeks.

But the celebrations didn’t stop. She attended events on crutches and in a wheelchair, making appearances at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Orioles, Baltimore Ravens, Washington Spirit and Washington Mystics games. And when she returned to Dominica, she saw firsthand how much her achievement meant to the country.

During a parade in LaFond’s honor, Gadson looked out on the street and saw grown men crying. They told him they had never been prouder to be from Dominica.

The country, oftentimes confused with the Dominican Republic, is classified as a developing nation and is one of the least-populated countries in the world. They have had a handful of elite athletes, but none who have reached the heights that LaFond has.

Now, Dominica was on the world stage.

“It was just really emotional,” Gadson said. “I underestimated the impact that it would have on all these folks. Of course, for me and Thea, it was cool to win, but it was really, really powerful as far as how it impacted the country and those people and their identities.”

LaFond’s legacy is about to grow. LaFond and the government are discussing the creation of a sports village that could double as an elite training center, with dormitories, an Olympic-sized pool, a gym and a stadium. They also hope to build a smaller training center in all five regions of the island so kids can have access regardless of where they live.

It will take a while to get the projects moving — Dominica is mountainous, so clearing land is a time-consuming process, and they must also contend with the Caribbean climate — but the hope is to have the projects completed by 2028.

However, LaFond doesn’t know yet if she’ll get to take advantage of these facilities. She hasn’t committed to training for the 2028 Olympics — her knee surgery was a temporary fix, and she will likely need another surgery in the future.

But she does plan to host camps and coach at the complex, and to continue making a difference in Dominica and Maryland.

“My life is a duality between the states and Dominica, and I’ll always have a home in both,” she said. “In all of this, I just want the next generation to have it easier than I did.”