Athletics
Laulauga Lagi Tausaga wins Gold Medal at Pan American Games in Lima, Peru
By Albert Ainuu
Local Samoan girl, Laulauga Tausaga from San Diego, has won the 2017 Junior Pan American Games Discus contest in Lima, Peru with a record throw of 59.29 meters or 194 ft 61/2 in. In her final throw she broke the meet record by almost 2 meters. Her Coach Andrew Dubs relayed the message to her family in San Diego via Facebook with great pride at the amazing feat by Laulauga who is only a Freshman. Laulauga has only been attending Iowa University since this Fall of 2016 but within less than a year she has achieved several major accomplishments including becoming the first Iowa female discus thrower to win the Big Ten title, become an All American and become the Junior National Champion in the discus which qualified her for the Pan American Games in Peru which began on Friday, July 21, 2017. All in her first year competing at Division 1 level.
Local Samoan girl, Laulauga Tausaga from San Diego, has won the 2017 Junior Pan American Games Discus contest in Lima, Peru with a record throw of 59.29 meters or 194 ft 61/2 in. In her final throw she broke the meet record by almost 2 meters. Her Coach Andrew Dubs relayed the message to her family in San Diego via Facebook with great pride at the amazing feat by Laulauga who is only a Freshman. Laulauga has only been attending Iowa University since this Fall of 2016 but within less than a year she has achieved several major accomplishments including becoming the first Iowa female discus thrower to win the Big Ten title, become an All American and become the Junior National Champion in the discus which qualified her for the Pan American Games in Peru which began on Friday, July 21, 2017. All in her first year competing at Division 1 level.
Winning the Discus in Peru Laulauga Tausaga is the golden girl
Laulauga's mother, Avea Tausaga, was quite ecstatic when she received the news of her daughter's success at the Pan Am Games in Peru and that her daughter brought home a Gold medal for the USA. Its a long journey from Spring Valley and Monte Vista High School where Laulauga was a 4 year Varsity City and State finalist in Shot Put and Discus, to becoming the Pan American champion. However, when she discussed her rapid progress she was quick to credit her coach who prepared her physically and then made her focus on the mental part of competition. This according to Laulauga was the difference in her ability to progress from High School to Collegian athlete and achieve so much in such a short time. Meanwhile her coach was equally grateful to Laulauga's mother for letting him coach a special athlete such as Laulauga.
Her Coach Andrew Dubs is proud of his first Iowa University athlete to win at such a prestigious level.
Its barely even a year since she made the transition from Spring Valley to Iowa University but already the future is looking quite promising for this young lady. She is talented and has placed herself in a position to move further up the ladder in terms of the competition. Looking forward we hope she continues to improve. The world is at her feet if she stays focused and does her part of studying, passing her classes and training hard. There is alot of ground to cover but the road to discus supremacy now seems to run through Iowa Hawkeye territory thanks to local San Diego girl Laulauga and we here at Le Malae wish her well.
