Tyra Git­ten-Spotsville had great ex­pec­ta­tions at this year's World Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships cur­rent­ly tak­ing place at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Tokyo, Japan.

Fol­low­ing her vic­to­ry in the women's long jump at the Bar­ba­dos Grand Prix in Ju­ly, Git­tens-Spotville shared with Guardian Me­dia Sports that she was record­ing sev­en-me­tre jumps in prac­tice. So go­ing in­to the qual­i­fy­ing round of the women's long jump at the World Champs on Sat­ur­day, I was con­fi­dent of ad­vanc­ing to the fi­nals.

How­ev­er, her plans went awry af­ter she could on­ly muster 6.05 me­tres, well short of the 6.75 m qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard and 32nd over­all. The 27-year-old was al­so adrift of her 2025 best dis­tance of 6.73 and her na­tion­al record of 6.96.

Git­ten-Spotsvile was gut­ted. How­ev­er, she was ap­pre­cia­tive of the progress she has made in the sport: "(I am) dis­ap­point­ed but grate­ful. My en­tire pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer has been about build­ing my world rank­ing. I went from num­ber 10 in the world in long jump to 148 and now at 26, and in that climb I have grown more than ever—more con­sis­tent in my jumps than any year of my ca­reer, even in col­lege."

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas A&M and Texas Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate, in re­flect­ing on her Tokyo out­ing, sharesh­er take­aways."Yes­ter­day (Sat­ur­day) I came in with amaz­ing warmups and even opened with a strong first at­tempt, but in the mo­ment I tried to be some­one I was not. I let the mo­ment be big­ger than my­self, some­thing Jereem (Richard) had re­mind­ed us not to do. I thought I un­der­stood, but now I re­alise I did not un­der­stand it enough to ap­ply it in this mo­ment. This was a big learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence."

The 2025 North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (NACAC) Cham­pi­onships bronze medal­list told Guardian Me­dia Sports in an in­ter­view via What­sApp that she is still fo­cused on ex­celling in the long jump pit. "My goal for my ca­reer has not changed. This year has been about pa­tience, be­lief, and re­build­ing. My rise in the world rank­ings proves what con­sis­ten­cy and growth can do. And while I’m dis­ap­point­ed now, this is on­ly the be­gin­ning of a new era in my ca­reer."