{"id":4140,"date":"2025-04-07T12:18:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/?p=4140"},"modified":"2025-04-07T12:18:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:18:35","slug":"2025-throw-town-world-invitational-preview-laulauga-tausaga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/?p=4140","title":{"rendered":"2025 Throw Town World Invitational Preview: Laulauga Tausaga"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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If you enjoy roller coasters, I encourage you to check out Laulauga Tausaga\u2019s career stats on her World Athletics profile page. Let\u2019s start with 2019 when she made a huge breakthrough by winning the NCAA title, a huger breakthrough by making the US team for the Doha Worlds, a monumental breakthrough by throwing a 63.94m PB in qualifying there\u2026and then fouled all three throws in the final. In 2021, she finished second at the NCAA…but did not record a mark at the Olympic Trials. In 2022, she threw 64.49m at the US Championships to finish second and qualify for the Worlds in Eugene where she once again advanced to the final\u2026only to go 56.47m, 55.93m, foul, and finish twelfth. The following year, she made the final at the Worlds in Budapest\u2026then threw a 4-meter PB and won the damn thing! Last season, after opening with a solid 65.38m in April, she struggled most of the summer and had another disastrous Olympic Trials where, as in 2021, she did not record a mark.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last weekend, Lagi began her 2025 campaign with a solid 62.85m for the win at the Florida relays. This week, she will appear for the first time at the Throw Town World Invitational in Ramona, Oklahoma, where Joe Frontier and I will serve as commentators on a broadcast produced by the fine folks at Throws University. In this interview, she reflects back on a difficult 2024 season and expresses optimism about finally finding the consistency she has worked so hard to achieve.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had to be tough on you to struggle last year after having such an epic 2023 season. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 2023, a lot of people were looking for me to do something amazing last year, but I was just craving consistency. I knew those big throws at Worlds and in the Diamond League final were outliers. Not that I wouldn\u2019t be able to reach those distances again, but what I really wanted was to put together a season where I was always hitting 62 to 64 meters no matter what. But a lot of things changed last year. My coach, John Dagata ended up moving to the Bay area while I stayed in San Diego and did a lot of training on my own. Both of us were very busy  and it was sometimes difficult to set up sessions where he could coach me over Facetime. I would go to him for training camps, and we did our best, but after a while I had to face the fact that it wasn\u2019t working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the two meets in April in China (Note: Lagi went 60.61m to finish tenth at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting, then no-marked a week later in Suzhou)<\/em>, I was like, \u201cWe are in crisis mode.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My training was going better later in the summer, but I still wasn\u2019t consistent. I knew I could make the team for Paris, but the other girls got it done that day and I didn\u2019t. Missing out on the Olympics put me in a position to look at my career and say, \u201cDo we want to do this again? Do we want to go through another season of craving consistency and not finding it?\u201d There had to be a better way to move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s when you started thinking about making some changes?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Olympic Trials, I decided to end my season. Someone told me at the time that it was a stupid move, but how was that stupid if I wasn\u2019t feeling right physically or mentally? No amount of, \u201cYou got this!\u201d was going to make it better, so I took six weeks off, sat down and was like \u201cAlright, this was the second team you haven’t made. This was the third season in a row of trying to find consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did some soul searching. I was craving the kind of consistency I had in college in 2019 when on my worst days I still usually threw 58 or 59 meters. Since then, I\u2019d had too many meets where I was throwing like 55 meters. I took six weeks off, then told Dagata I was ready to get back on the horse, but there were things I needed to do to actually ride it and not let it take me wherever. I couldn\u2019t afford to live in Oakland, and I wasn\u2019t in an emotional state to drop everything and move anyway. Some athletes might have done it, but I’m an emotional thrower, and if I don’t feel comfortable it affects my training. I wanted to stay closer to home, and I told Dagata I wanted to bring on my high school coach Jorge Reyes, so I\u2019d have someone to be here with me to bounce ideas off of and to give me immediate feedback. I realized that throwing was a social sport for me, and I thrived around other people. In 2024, I was alone for probably eighty percent of my training, and that just didn\u2019t work. I had stayed close with Jorge through college and my pro years, and he was always easy to communicate with and good to bounce ideas off of. I did that with teammates in college. When the coach said something, I might ask the other throwers, \u201cDo you understand what he\u2019s saying?\u201d I just always enjoyed training in a place where I had other people to interact with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it helped having Coach Reyes around, but I was also thinking back to my time at Iowa. I had three amazing years throwing for Eric Werskey, and we kept in touch after he took the job at Florida after the Olympic Trials in 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the 2024 season, I got to a point where I felt a little lost in the situation I was in, so I sat down with Coach Reyes and told him I was considering contacting Werskey and asking him to work with me again. I went back and forth on it and couldn\u2019t make up my mind, and I must have been driving Coach Reyes crazy, because one day after practice he gave me an ultimatum. He looked at me and said, \u201cYou are going to call me tonight and tell me what you\u2019re doing. You are going to make a decision and we are going to move on from there and never talk about this again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s what I did. I went home and made my decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which was?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided to ask Coach Werskey to take over my training. But first, I had to talk to Dagata. We won a medal together, and I respect him as a coach, but the situation just wasn\u2019t working for me. So I told Dagata, then I had to reach out to Werskey. I guess I probably should have called him first, but\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I called Werskey and at first I avoided asking him what I wanted to ask him. I was like, \u201cHow are you? How is everything at Florida?\u201d Finally, I got around to it and asked if he\u2019d be my coach for the 2025 season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he would, so we set it up where I still work with Coach Reyes, but we send Eric videos right after practice and he gives me feedback every day as soon as he can. Maybe a text message. Maybe a voicemail in our coaching chat. \u201cHey, here is what I see\u2026\u201d Those quick responses and Eric and Coach Reyes\u2019 ability to work together have made a big difference for me. Over the course of the last few months, I\u2019ve seen so much growth. And I\u2019ve been able to make it to Florida around once a month to work with him in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you excited to get a chance to compete at Throw Town?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. I\u2019ve never been there before, but I\u2019m excited to see how I do in the wind. I know people freak out about \u201cwind this\u201d and \u201cwind that,\u201d but let\u2019s be real. Isn\u2019t that why we go to meets like Triton? I actually prefer less wind most of the time because if you have a strong wind and don\u2019t find your rhythm it will eat you. But sometimes the wind can also show you what\u2019s possible, like last year with Joe Brown and Veronica Fraley. They both threw well at Throw Town then ended up in the Olympics, so are you going to tell me those throws in Oklahoma weren\u2019t real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because you won in 2023, you have a bye for this year\u2019s Worlds, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do have the bye for Tokyo, and it probably saved my career. It was crushing not to make it to the Olympics last year, and during those six weeks after the Trials I spent a lot of time contemplating whether or not I was done. But then I\u2019d think, \u201cWell, I have the bye, so I might as well keep going and see how much ass I can kick before I give it up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:\u00a0The World Invitational will take place at Throw Town from April 10-13. Check out\u00a0Throws University<\/a>\u00a0for a livestream featuring Joe Frontier and yours truly as commentators!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you enjoy roller coasters, I encourage you to check out Laulauga Tausaga\u2019s career stats on her World Athletics profile page. Let\u2019s start with 2019 when she made a huge breakthrough by winning the NCAA title, a huger breakthrough by making the US team for the Doha Worlds, a monumental breakthrough by throwing a 63.94m … Continue reading 2025 Throw Town World Invitational Preview: Laulauga Tausaga<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discus","category-interviews","category-meets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8knIb-14M","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}