There’s a difference between being the best in the game and the face of the sport.

Football people know this. The NFL recently unveiled its annual “Top 100” ranking, in which Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill was declared the best player in the NFL; but even Hill’s biggest fans would admit that the face of football is Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes — who finished fourth in the “Top 100” voting. In the NBA, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic has the strongest argument to be considered the best player, having won three of the last four league MVP awards. But there’s no doubt that the face of basketball remains LeBron James, even as the 39-year-old legend is past his prime. Golf? Scottie Scheffler is ranked No. 1 in the world, but Tiger Woods (ranked 903rd) is the name who first comes to mind when most people think of the sport. You get the idea.

Every four years, the Olympics sets the stage for track and field to find its face. And as the 2024 Paris Olympics wind down this weekend, it’s likely that serious and casual fans would agree that polarizing sprinter Noah Lyles of the United States is the face of the sport — even if the pound-for-pound best track athlete in the world right now might be U.S. women’s 400-meter hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, or Swedish men’s pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, each of whom broke world records in Paris.

If you break it down by each event, there aren’t a lot of tough debates. Lyles is the best and “Fastest Man in the World” in the 100-meter dash after winning gold in Paris, and he’s also the face of that event. Duplantis is both the best at his event and the face of pole vaulting. Grant Holloway of the U.S. is the face of the 110-meter hurdles and the best thing it has going, coming off an Olympic gold medal won in dominant fashion.

Then there’s the long jump.

The most dominant long jumper in the world right now is Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece, who won his second straight Olympic gold medal in Paris — becoming the first man or woman to pull that off since Carl Lewis won four straight long jump golds from 1984 to 1996.

And yet the new face of the long jump is Tara Davis-Woodhall, the American who won her first major-championship gold medal on Thursday.

One thing about about being the face of a sport is that you have to want it. NBA fans and media can bestow all the glowing compliments on Jokic and compare him to history’s greatest centers, but all the awards and accolades won’t get him face-of-basketball status if he doesn’t lean into it — and Jokic famously does not care about being famous. The Serbian 7-footer shies away from the spotlight, whereas LeBron and Stephen Curry and even rising face-of-the-sport hopeful Anthony Edwards seek it out by doing movies, TV shows, commercials, podcasts, and magazine features to cement themselves in the public consciousness.

Olympic 200-meter dash gold medalist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana was accurate — albeit while throwing shade — when he said Lyles is the face of track in large part because he aggressively calls that kind of attention to himself.

Tentoglou is the Nikola Jokic of the long jump. (Even though I call him “The Other Greek Freak” as a nod to his countryman Giannis Antetokounmpo, the NBA superstar who’s making his own strong case to be the face of basketball post-LeBron.) When the 12 competitors in Tuesday’s men’s long jump final were introduced inside Stade de France, most of them either played to the crowd or burst out of the tunnel full of energy; Tentoglou casually strolled to the runway like it was just another training session. After he clinched gold with a jump of 8.48 meters (about 27 feet, 9 inches), his “celebration” reached a level of nonchalance that would make Jokic proud.

Contrast that to Davis-Woodhall. During the women’s long jump final on Thursday, the 25-year-old found every camera that was pointed at her and gave the audience a smile or a pose. One time she banged out some push-ups between jumps and flexed for the camera, knowing all eyes were on her. After her jump of 7.10 meters (23 feet, 3.5 inches) secured the gold medal, she screamed, she cried, she fell into the long jump pit and made a sand angel, she ran over to her husband in the stands and leaped into his arms, she broke out her trademark cowboy hat and posed for pictures with the American flag. It made for countless Instagram clips, Twitter posts, front-page photos — the viral moments that turn sports standouts into sports superstars. (Davis-Woodhall and her husband, Paralympics athlete Hunter Woodhall, have a YouTube channel called “Hunter and Tara” that has over 800,000 subscribers.)

That said, Davis-Woodhall is more than just catchy gimmicks and a magnetic personality; she performs when it matters and delivers results on the field.

Davis-Woodhall entered the Olympics as the No. 1-ranked women’s long jumper in the world. At the U.S. trials in June, she finished atop the leaderboard even after a tense moment where she had to nail her third jump to even make it into the finals. In Paris, she went into the qualifying round and took the top spot. Then, in the final, she won by holding off previous Olympic gold medalist and reigning world champion Malaika Mihambo of Germany and U.S. teammate Jasmine Moore (who won bronze medals in both the long jump and triple jump).

On the eve of the men’s long jump final, when I covered the struggles of the U.S. men’s team, I wrote about how the long jump won’t become a marquee event again until an athlete comes along with a big enough personality and mainstream appeal to make people pay attention to the long jump. Similar to what Carl Lewis did; similar to what McLaughlin-Levrone has done for the 400 hurdles.

The gold medals at major meets are prerequisite for credibility, but there’s an extra dose of aura that’s also necessary. Tentoglou has the first part down, but doesn’t seem invested in winning public adoration. Davis-Woodhall, now gold-certified, is front and center, doing her best to put the long jump back on the map.