Laulauga Tausaga-Collins: A "big girl" who found her strength in throwing discus

When Laulauga Tausaga-Collins was 13 years old, her mother purchased a new refrigerator. It needed to be moved into the family’s home in southern California, and the task fell to Tausaga-Collins and her 11-year-old brother. She looked at her brother as the fridge came off the truck, and they knew they just had to figure out a way to get it inside. She doesn’t really know exactly how they did it, but they did. Afterwards, her grandmother squeezed her arm and said, “Muscles! Muscles!”

The strength Tausaga-Collins found at such a young age is the same reserve she used to help win discus gold at the 2023 World Athletics Championships. In August 2023, she threw for 69.49 meters, winning her first world title and the first-ever women's discus for Team USA.

“You know, it's been months and I'll wake up and think, 'It wasn't a dream. You absolutely did that,'” Tausaga-Collins said in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com.

In the months leading up to the U.S. and World Championships, Tausaga-Collins struggled in practice. She had a moment where her emotions came pouring out because her throwing just wasn’t going right. She was ready to walk away.

But she kept going, and took second at the U.S. Championships, then had a monster throw in Budapest at Worlds.

"I go back to watch the video, and I'm just as surprised as the crowd. At this point, I am the crowd. I'm having an out-of-body experience,” she said. “And I just remember sitting there and I was like, I'm so glad I didn't let myself give up.”

The win affirmed not just her decision to stay in the sport, but her choice to believe in herself.

"It was absolutely giving the bird to my former self and being like, how dare you deny yourself this greatness? How dare you say that you're not good enough when you are absolutely just as good?”

Of course, self-doubt doesn’t magically disappear when a discus is thrown and neither did it when the world championship gold medal was hung around Tausaga-Collins' neck. As she trains for the U.S. Olympic Trials that will take place in June 2024, she keeps working to prevent that doubt from creeping back in.

"I’m kind of fighting with it. I don't like sometimes when I have practice. I’ll think, maybe it was a fluke. And I'm just like, why would you say that? Why would you think that? You know, you are just as good and you proved that!”

How athletics helped Laulaga Tausaga Collins find comfort in being a "big girl"

When Tausaga-Collins was young, her mother said to her, “You’re a big girl. You have to use that.” In discus throwing, she found out that not only can she use her size for something good, but that she can find others who look like her who are athletes, too.

“Track has absolutely helped me to be okay with being a big girl. Because there are these beauty standards, and it's either you're skinny or you're big and curvy. And we know what that is because I go see the models and it's like, okay, like she's a plus-size model, but she’s still mainstream pretty. She doesn't have my type. She's not broad-shouldered, you know smaller waist. She's not built like me,” she said.

But showing up at track and field practices in high school and college, at the University of Iowa, she saw other women who looked like her, and they were great athletes, too.

"I started also seeing these other big-backed women. And I thought, what's wrong with us? There's nothing wrong with us! We are athletes to the utmost. It didn't matter the body shape. We were there specifically because we knew what we wanted to do,” she said.

At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Team USA had everyone from Simone Biles, at 4-foot-8 (142 cm), to Brittney Griner, at 6-foot-8 (203 cm). Something the Olympics shows so well is how there is no single way to be an athlete, but being a big girl means Tausaga-Collins isn’t always viewed as an athlete.

“I can't say how many times people are just like, ‘You're an athlete?’ Oh, yeah, I am. It doesn't matter. They come in all different shapes and sizes. You see a skateboarder that is an athlete. Will he be able to do what I can do? No. Well, will I probably fall on my butt if I try to get on the skateboard? Yes. Well, we absolutely crush whatever we do for that specific sport. We are elite in whatever we do.

"This sport has given me so much, right? I'm so much prouder in myself, and and showing the world that this is an athletic body.”

Tausaga-Collins comes from a large Samoan family, and she has 14 nieces and nephews. As she has found her own well of confidence in throwing, she’s tried to pass it on to them.

“Some of my nieces, they're just like, oh, I don't want to wear that. I don't like that. I'm like, girl, you're 12. This is not the time to be criticizing your body because the world is going to do it for you anyway. Look at me. I'm like, do I wear what I want? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, looks good about 80 per cent of the time, right? Yeah. So why are you ashamed? I don't know, and I'm just like, no, just do it. Just do it.”

Laulauga Tausaga-Collins: "The pressure is on"

While her world title has helped Tausaga-Collins find her confidence, it doesn’t guarantee her a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. In the U.S., athletes need to perform well at the Olympic Trials to make the track and field team.

She didn’t make the team for Tokyo 2020.

"America is one of the best countries when it comes to track and field. Just because I won last year, it doesn’t mean that I'm guaranteed to make that team. And I'm in a position where I want to do well. I very much do. But it's an understanding that the Olympic Trials is one of the most cutthroat places to be. And I've been through one where I didn't make it, and it absolutely broke me. And so I've had to go through the trials and tribulations of telling myself not making a team does not diminish who you are,” she said.

But make no mistake – Tausaga-Collins wants to make the U.S. Olympic team for Paris 2024.

“We're fighting to the death for these three spots. It's so scary. It is absolutely terrifying. And so what I've had to tell myself is do not lose. Do not lose sight of what the goal is. And people will tell me, you know, what about Paris? And I'm like if I make it through USA trials, I have won. Yeah, I'm an Olympian. Whatever happens after that is pure fun.”

This is one of the ways her experience at the world championships comes into play. She can remember how she has fought through her fears in the past, and how well it turned out last time.

“The pressure is on, and I understand that. And I think what's different now, what this world championship medal has done is tell me it's okay. It is okay to be afraid, but I cannot let it cripple me. I have to use it as fuel. As in, it could possibly go wrong, but it could be absolutely amazing like it was last year.”