Pre Classic 2023 x Throws Preview: Discus

2023 World Champions Laulaula Tausaga and Daniel Ståhl will compete for the Diamond League titles in the discus throw at The Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field on Sunday, September 17. Photos by Dan Vernon and Marta Gorczynska for Diamond League AG

By Kara Winger

Ah, the Wanda Diamond League Final. The vibes in the dining rooms of this competition are so special. You can feel how important it is to everyone to do well, absolutely know in your bones that they’re all ready to perform, and also understand the undertone of celebration: Of being almost done with yet another long season in which every athlete there has done at least one thing that they’re proud of. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have made it onto the start list of this most prestigious event in the track and field world.

Everyone has a general understanding of your season, and you of theirs, and the supportiveness of that open conversation is unmatched. As an athlete, you can’t help but be elevated by the atmosphere of the last - and best - meet of the season. This year, it’s the always incredible Prefontaine Classic. 

Hey! I’m the reigning Diamond League Champion in the women’s javelin, Kara Winger. Zurich in 2022 was the final meet of my career, and earning that gorgeous Diamond Trophy (the first American in my event to do so) as the sun set on my career was the cherry on top of the incredible icing on the delicious cake that my last season was. Now that I’m a full year out of my athletic career, I have an even more fun perspective than 20 years of competition afforded on the events I love the most - the throws. I’ve always been a wild fan. Here’s what I’ll be cheering for this weekend from the Citius Mag Superfan Section!

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Women’s Discus

2023 World Champion Laulauga Tausaga will compete among the world’s best in the women’s discus throw at The Prefontaine Classic on Sunday, September 17. Photo by Dan Vernon for Diamond League AG

Field: Valarie Allman, Sandra Perkovic, Kristin Pudenz, Laulauga Tausaga, Jorinde Van Klinken, Claudine Vita

My goodness, this event this season. It has been so fun to watch Valarie dominate for the last few years, but everyone also loves the drama of switching up results on the world’s biggest stages! And the mixture of new talent and established dominance from the discus queen from Croatia makes every competition an edge of your seat experience. 

Claudine Vita and Kristin Pudenz have been quiet German forces for years and years. Tokyo silver medalist Pudenz and European bronze medalist Vita have been consistent on the Diamond League circuit this year, and like I’ve stated a bunch of times, it’s anyone’s game when you earn your spot on such an exclusive start list. They’ve both strung together a bunch of 65m and 66m meets on the year, and when the pressure is off in the last comp, discs can truly fly. 

I can’t wait to see Jorinde Van Klinken of the Netherlands back on her home turf, having graduated from University of Oregon just this summer! She only spent three years competing in the NCAA (first at ASU and then UO), but went undefeated. Undefeated. In her NCAA career. When she flew to Diamond League meets this season, it was between classes and finals, and then a few days after her last NCAA Championship victory, shocked Val and Sandra with a win in Oslo. So excited to see her return to this ring, for the first time as a post-collegiate. She ended her Eugene 2022 Worlds run in fourth, and, terribly, was one spot off the podium with a 67.20m effort in Budapest as well. She was also the only athlete to compete in both shotput and discus, and made top 12 in both. She’s only 23. I’m pumped for her future, beyond just watching excited on Sunday! 

Sandra Perkovic has won the Diamond trophy seven times, but her most recent Final victory was back in 2017. The 2x World and 2x Olympic Champion is only 33, but has absolutely dominated the event for the last decade. Her season so far has been a slower build than in recent years, but she still performs best on the biggest stages, reserving a season’s best for Budapest (where she finished fifth), and performing well for her home crowd last week in Zagreb (a 67.71m victory). Last year at the very end of the season, she handed Valarie a rare defeat with 68.46m at the last moment, and I bet she has some more in the tank, being so experienced and so inspiringly competitive about retaining her global metaphorical throne. 

The American Record holder, Tokyo Olympic Champion, and the first American to ever throw 70m (and has done so twice this year) is Valarie Allman. She earned the first Worlds medal for an American woman in the event with her bronze in Eugene last year, and the first Worlds silver medal for an American woman this year in Budapest. She’s the two-time defending Diamond League Champion, and her Olympic Trials 2021 results in this stadium have to mean that she’s confident coming in! We can pretty much always count on Val (although remembering that she’s a human makes her performances all the more impressive), and I’ll look for her to start the meet really strong. 

There’s one more athlete in this field. She’s the first U.S. woman to ever win the World Championships discus title. She’s only 25. Her trajectory since 2019 has been so fun to follow, and watching Instagram celebrate her massive victory in Budapest was my favorite thing about this year’s global championship. With one of the most composed performances the world of discus has ever seen, Laulauga Tausaga won Worlds with an overall 4m PB of 69.49m. She had thrown a personal best in the Eugene ring already this summer, coming in second on her last toss with 65.46m at the U.S. Championship, so I’m really looking forward to seeing her come back to this venue where the magic started.

I made sure to attend the medal ceremony in Budapest, to see my teammates share the top of the podium. I cried a LOT. My hands were shaking. I might do the same things on Sunday, and I’m not sorry. This event is packed, competitive, was so strong at Worlds, and is virtually guaranteed to be a brawl this weekend! 

Men’s Discus

Swedish three-time Diamond League Final winner, Olympic Champion, and two-time World Champion Daniel Ståhl will compete for the Diamond Trophy at Hayward Field on Sunday, September 17. Photo by Marta Gorczynska for Diamond League AG

Field: Kristjan Čeh, Matthew Denny, Andrius Gudžius, Sam Mattis, Lawrence Okoye, Daniel Ståhl

All 6 of these men have personal bests beyond 68 meters. Two of them have the exact same massive PB of 71.86m. One has a huge fire in his belly. And two have no pressure, only opportunity. 

Sam Mattis went to his third World Championships this year, and missed the final for the first time on the global stage (including his Olympic debut in Tokyo, where he finished 8th). Consistency over 64m on the year though, and a 67m opener after undergoing very invasive cancer treatment last fall, mean that he has looked at this season through a very different lens than any other year before it. My hope is that perspective and one final 2023 opportunity let him relax and let loose like he did to win his second U.S. title in this ring in July. 

I remember very well when Brit Lawrence Okoye burst onto the international discus stage in 2011: He had dabbled with the 1.75kg U20 implement the year before, but rocketed up to 67m in his first season with the 2kg, and the community was somewhat shook. Consistency was not there, as you can imagine, but he quickly improved that too, reaching the London Olympic final in 2012. He promptly tried out for the NFL, and bounced around teams for years before returning to Track and Field in 2019. By 2021, he was back to 67m efforts and making global championships teams, and I can’t help but cheer for the guy. 

The 2017 World Champion and Diamond League Final Champion Andrius Gudžius also earned bronze at Oregon22, and has been consistent over 66m this year with a best so far on the season of 67.66m. He owns a big PB of 69.59m from 2018, and can be counted on to put a competitive series together at any competition. 

Matty Denny’s new PB, an Australian Record 68.24m, earned him fourth place in Budapest, which would be great if you didn’t know how close he’d been to global podiums for the last four years. When he started making teams, he quickly made finals, Olympic debuting in Rio, then finishing 6th in Doha, an agonizing five centimeters shy of the podium in Tokyo with a then-PB of 67.02m, 6th in Eugene, and then a meter and a half ahead of fifth but half a meter behind third in Budapest, despite a full meter personal best. After frustration in Oregon last year though, he went and won Commonwealth Gold with a then-PB, so I’m excited to see his turnaround this weekend after some space from Budapest.

I believe that Kristjan Čeh has the upper hand at Hayward Field over Daniel Ståhl, but I could be completely wrong! The Swedish three-time Diamond League Final winner, Olympic Champion, and now 2x World Champion Daniel earned just fourth at Oregon22, but turned around and immediately threw 70m back on home soil. He has tossed over 71 meters in SIX of the last seven seasons, setting the tone for the world of discus every year. I will be forever grateful that I went to watch the men’s final in Budapest, because seeing Stahl’s last round, closed-stadium, no wind, 71.46m come-from-behind victory will be one of the coolest throwing moments in all of our collective memory.

When Daniel first threw 71m, Kristjan was 18 years old and had a 2kg discus PB of 52.22m. He hadn’t yet thrown the 1.75kg discus 60 meters! But one of my favorite places to hang out on the internet is World Athletics athlete profiles: Watching the numbers increase steadily over the years is so fun. Little time capsules of greatness for the athletes we cheer for. Incredible learning curves I love to pore over. Slovenian Record holder Čeh won Worlds last year, set the tone in Budapest before being caught by Stahl, and is the most consistent discus thrower in the world in the last two seasons. 

Kristjan and Daniel are tied for fourth on the all-time world list in the event at 71.86m, and I do believe that Kristjan could go further at Prefontaine, as his PB just came in June of this year, with 4 other comps over 70 meters. Kristjan won the DL Final last year, but Daniel has three trophies to his name, and made a giant statement in Hungary that he’s not going anywhere.

Get ready for a showdown!