Jasmine Moore always loved jumping. For a while when she was a kid, she thought all those leaps, with a few twirls mixed in, might make her part of America's Team as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.
How's this for a backup plan: She's on America's team in Paris.
The 23-year-old, seven-time NCAA champion parlayed all that leaping ability into not one but two chances for an Olympic gold medal. Moore is the first US woman to make the Games in both triple jump and long jump.
Moore, who grew up in the Dallas-Forth Worth area in Texas and got used to flying high as a kid in gymnastics and competitive cheerleading, eventually gave all that up to pursue a life in track and field. She leaned into the triple jump first, then took up long jumping because it wasn't all that different.
For me, the goal was always free college,' getting a scholarship, she said.
She did just that first in Georgia, then in Florida and now, she is in Paris, with a jam-packed schedule and maybe a little extra room
