Vashti Cunningham Is Pushing Past the Pain in Quest for First Olympic Medal

The 26-year-old high jumper was one of many track and field athletes who competed in the first qualifying rounds in Paris on Friday.

In her third Olympics, Vashti Cunningham is chasing her first medal. / James Lang/USA TODAY Sports

SAINT-DENIS, France — Over 16 NFL seasons and 161 regular-season games, Randall Cunningham understood that job-related pain was inevitable. He played through more than his share. But over the course of the last six months, he saw in his daughter, Vashti, an even higher tolerance and willingness to compete with pain. 

“People don’t know, she’s nursed this bulging disc in her back,” he said Friday, “for about half of this [track] season.”

Rest was the only way she could rid her back of the pain entirely. Imagine knowing that in reporting to work each day, you would feel severe pain, right in the one area of your body that’s central to your job. And just at the time when your carefully executed career plans are falling into place.

No matter. Vashti Cunningham competed in high jump qualifying at the Paris Olympics on Friday. She made no excuses. She qualified—though with a little more drama than at U.S. trials back in June.

“I feel old,” she said, at 26. She was sweating—not from the competition but more from the heat pad attached to her ailing back. “Scraping my way into the finals.”

Under a bright late-morning sun on Friday, a raucous crowd of nearly 80,000 fans turned out for the first day of track and field qualifying rounds in Paris, wearing bright wigs and carrying signs, dancing and waving flags. Cunningham didn’t match her personal best (2.02 meters, roughly 6.6 feet) or her best mark this season (1.97 meters; nearly 6.5 feet). But that wasn’t the point of Friday; advancing mattered, nothing else.

Cunningham advanced to Sunday's women's high jump final. / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Cunningham entered the Olympic competition ranked seventh in the world, with two previous Games experiences on her resume. Her father, no longer an NFL quarterback, splits his days into preaching and coaching his daughter. His approach is unconventional: Vashti reduces how often she jumps in practice, focusing on strength, speed and technique instead. Randall—the senior preacher at Remnant Ministries in Las Vegas—famously once said, “I put my trust in God and in the weight room.”

It has proven successful for Cunningham. In 2016, at age 18, she was the youngest U.S. track and field athlete to make the team since 1980. In 2019, Cunningham won a bronze medal at the world championships in Doha. In ‘21, she finished sixth in Tokyo, at her second Games. In ’23,  she won the U.S. indoor championships. And it especially helped whenever an injury cropped up—like the bone spur she had surgically removed from her ankle in 2019. She didn’t need to jump as much, they believed, as long as she got stronger and faster and more technical while not jumping.

The next, logical step: winning an Olympic medal, in her third Games, in Paris. 

Then she hurt her back.

She went to Trials anyway, determined to make the team. She didn’t see the twist coming—Kentucky standout Charity Hufnagel, who finished 12th at the most recent NCAA championships, cleared a lifetime-best (1.94 meters; roughly 6.4 feet) and snapped Cunningham’s 13-straight high jump wins in U.S. indoor and outdoor competition. But Cunningham met the Olympic standard and won a jump-off to qualify for her third Games. 

Anyone who saw her fall back in the pit in Eugene or celebrate in Paris for simply qualifying was unlikely to understand the depth of her emotions. Because of her back injury, she hasn’t been able to train for strength and speed like usual. Cunningham realized that doing more didn’t always equate to doing better. The same thing happened in Randall’s NFL career. “I got smarter,” he says. There were standards to meet, but no reason to do more than what was absolutely necessary to meet them.  

Cunningham is eyeing the world record (2.10 meters), set by Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh just a few weeks ago, which broke the previous 37-year-old mark (2.09 meters) set by Bulgaria’s Stefka Kostadinova in 1987. She wants to celebrate all she fought through with the 10-member support circle that made the trip. She wants to realize her father’s latest “baptismal encouragement”—Randall’s term for Bible study. The theme: it’s time to take what’s yours.

The stakes are high, as Alexis Ohanian, the Reddit founder and investor, reminded everyone of the women’s track event he’s holding in New York on Sept. 26. Winners there will bank $60,000. On Friday, he upped the ante. Any of those who also won gold in Paris would make another $60,000.

Consider this qualifying day for the Americans. The vast majority advanced to the next round in their discipline.

The qualifiers included Sha’Carri Richardson, among the 100-meter favorites and potential superstars in Paris. Oddly enough—because of last cycle’s controversy, the one that requires zero further attention—her quarterfinal 100 heat here marked her Olympic debut. The crowd loved her, showering Richardson with an ovation so loud it prompted alerts from smart watches warning about loud environments. She won, easily, qualifying for Saturday’s semifinals, alongside longtime teammates and sprinters Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry. 

Also advancing: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (Jamaican sprint royalty) and Marie-Josée Ta Lou (Ivory Coast), who ran the fastest 100-meter quarterfinal time (10.87 seconds) on Friday.

Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse and Hobbs Kessler were among the American men’s 1,500-meter runners to qualify on Friday. In the 5,000-meters, runners the U.S.’s Elise Cranny, Karissa Schweizer and Whittni Morgan advanced, as did Jasmine Moore and Keturah Orji in the women’s triple jump. Rudy Winkler advanced in the men’s hammer throw and Juliette Whittaker in the women’s 800. 

Friday also featured U.S. shot put legends. Ryan Crouser, Joe Kovacs and Payton Otterdahl also advanced. Valarie Allman joined the party later, hoping to add to her medal collection (gold in Tokyo; one silver and one bronze, in subsequent world championships).

There was even a world record, set in qualifying. The U.S. team set a new world mark (3:07.41) in the 4X400 mixed relay, an event that will be part of the track program for the only second Olympics. 

The U.S. roster is deep and stacked with top-end talent. So far, so good on Paris’s purple track.