‘A leap of faith’: Donald Thomas chases fourth Olympic Games

AUBURN, Ala. – Auburn track and field alum Donald Thomas is a two-time NCAA All-American. He won a national championship in the high jump in 2007 and became a world champion later that same year. He’s currently training in hopes of competing for the Bahamas in what would be his fourth Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan this summer.

But before he was setting records and winning medals in the high jump, Thomas was a basketball player at Lindenwood University in Illinois. It was not until a friendly lunchroom dare that he began clearing the bar.

Thomas, eating in the cafeteria with one of his friends on the track team, looked over and saw the team’s high jumper at the time putting up his food tray.

“That’s your high jumper?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah,” his friend responded.

“Shoot, I could beat him jumping,” Thomas said.

“Nah, you can’t beat him,” his friend said. “He could jump 6-6.”

“I think I could do it,” Thomas said.

So they stopped eating and immediately went down to the jumping facility where Thomas jumped 7-0 with tennis shoes on. It was a new school record. 

It was at that moment – a simple challenge followed by one jump – when Thomas decided it was time to trade in his basketball shoes for high jump spikes. After joining the track and field team at Lindenwood, he jumped 7-3 ¼ at a meet and his career took off.

“Right after that competition before I got on the bus, it hit the internet,” Thomas said. “My phone was blowing up like crazy.”

One of those calls came from the Bahamas Olympic Federation which asked Thomas about joining the Bahamas Olympic Team. Fourteen years later, he’s preparing to compete in his fourth Olympics. 

Before he became an overnight high jump sensation, Thomas pondered his future in sports. He knew he had the athletic prowess to excel and ultimately go professional in a sport. He just didn’t know what sport yet. But he never lacked in confidence.

On his way to one of his first track meets, Thomas told his mom to listen to the meet on the radio.

“I'm going to shock the world,” he told her. “I just had this, I know it sounds kind of arrogant, but I had this confidence. I know I am going to do something big that the world is going to find out. Sure enough, that day I just blew up in the high jump.”

As offers from bigger schools started to pour in, Thomas chose Auburn University because he loved what the school stood for.

“To me, Auburn was a family ever since I came down there,” said Thomas, who still lives and trains in the area. “Auburn treated me well. They took me in.”

At Auburn, working with assistant coach Jerry Clayton, Thomas quickly accelerated to the top. Just a year after he was challenged in the cafeteria, Thomas was competing at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan, where he cleared 7-8 (2.35m) to win the gold medal. In that same year, he was crowned the national high jump champion.

The following year Thomas made his Olympic debut at the 2008 Beijing Games. Though he failed to make the final and finished 21st overall, he remembers the proud feeling of being at the Olympics and just taking everything in.

“It's a feeling like none other,” Thomas said. “It’s like going to war for your country.”

Of all the Olympic Games that Thomas has attended, he was most focused in 2016 for the Rio Olympics. It was his third appearance. He was not distracted by the sights and sounds as he had been there before. There was a calmness about him, a yearning for the gold medal, and as a result, he made his first Olympic final and finished in seventh with a jump of 7-6 (2.29m).

“You just have to have a love for what you do and a determination to succeed,” Thomas said. “I want to be successful, and I want to compete with the best. I want to go head-to-head with the best, so I’ve got to go from this side of the world to the opposite side to get that type of competition. I just love competing, so that’s what drives me. That's what drives me every day just to compete against the best and give it what I got.”

Thomas has already hit the qualifying standard for the 2021 Olympics, which is a weight off his shoulders. It can be easy to get caught up chasing marks rather than competing against the competition. But while hitting the Olympic standard is a great accomplishment, it is not the only goal Thomas is chasing.

“When I hit the mark at a competition, in the back of my mind, ‘Yeah, that's a qualification. But I'm in the middle of this competition and I'm still in third place.’ So I have to jump higher to beat my other competitors,” Thomas said.

It is that drive to compete and beat the athlete next to him that propels Thomas forward and over the bar each he goes out there.

Training and competing at a high level is challenging enough on its own, but adding the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has made it that much more difficult for athletes across the world. Thomas admits to feeling a little behind in his training due to not being able to train or not having access to the facilities necessary when everything first started.  

“Everyone around the world is experiencing some type of setback due to COVID so you’ve just got to roll with it and take it one day at a time,” Thomas said.

At the end of the day, Thomas pushes himself to make his family, friends and country proud. He attributes his success to the close circle around him which helps keep him grounded. He has not yet ruled out subsequent Olympic Games as he believes he’ll try to go as long as he remains competitive and has a chance to win a medal.

“I won’t just go to another games to be there,” he said. “I have to be very competitive.”

In regard to preparing for Tokyo 2020 with the world slowly opening back up, Thomas says he is back, patient and doing what he needs to do to be ready.

In the last 15 years, Thomas has won a world championship. He’s won a national championship. He’s jumped at three Olympic Games and will look to make it four this summer. But when it comes to legacy, he wants to be remembered for his determination and how taking a chance changed his life.

“I just want to be an inspiration to anyone out there who has dreams and goals or who wants to do something but are not sure what they could,” Thomas said. “Don’t be scared to take a leap of faith.”