LOS ANGELES — American record holders Rudy Winkler and Sam Mattis, and two of the top five women's discus and hammer throwers in U.S. history headline Saturday's LA Throws Cup at the South Bay Athletic Club's Colich Throwing Center in Wilmington. The event is the 15th stop on the 2026 USATF Tour and is a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meet.
Winkler, a three-time hammer throw Olympian who placed sixth at the Paris Games in 2024, set the American record of 83.16 to win the Prefontaine Classic last year and has surpassed 80 meters in three of his four meets this year. He won the USATF Winter Long Throws title in March and was again victorious at the Drake Relays and the USATF Throws Festival.
Among Winkler's top challengers will be Trey Knight, the No. 7 all-time U.S. performer with a PB of 79.33, and Olympian Alex Young. Denzel Comenentia of the Netherlands was a World Championships finalist last year at Tokyo and won the 2018 NCAA title, and Tyler Williams was fifth at the USATF Championships last summer.
Twice a national champion in the discus and eighth at the 2021 Olympics, Mattis is up against a formidable corps of Jamaicans. Most recently he finished fifth at the Stockholm Diamond League meet, and he set his AR of 72.45 at Ramona on April 9. Fedrick Dacres of Jamaica was the 2019 World Championships silver medalist and has a pair of Pan American Games gold medals. His PB of 70.78 came seven years ago, but the 32-year-old is still capable of big throws.
NCAA silver medalist Racquil Broderick and sixth place finisher Shamar Reid are up-and-coming Jamaicans who are also contenders for the podium, and Nigeria's Vincent Ugokwe was the NCAA bronze medalist with a PB toss of 63.89.
In the women's discus, No. 2 all-time U.S. performer Laulauga Tausaga was the World Championships gold medalist in 2023 and finished sixth last year. Her 70.72 PB makes her one of only two American women ever to surpass 70m. Veronica Fraley took the 2024 NCAA crown and ranks fifth on the all-time U.S. list at 68.72. She was an Olympian at Paris and a qualifier for the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. International flavor will be added by Jamaica's Samantha Hall, a World Championships finalist at Tokyo last year who improved her PB to 66.39 at Ramona in April.
Rachel Richeson has elevated herself to No. 3 on the all-time U.S. performer list in the women's hammer, and No. 6 on the world all-time list, with her PB of 79.33 at the USATF Lone Star Grand Prix on June 6 but will be hard pressed by a pair of Chinese global medalists as well as two-time World Championships medalist Janee' Kassanavoid. Richeson won the USATF Winter Long Throws gold and added a victory at the USATF Throws Festival.
The No. 4 all-time American, Kassanavoid has not been in top form yet this year but is rounding into shape. Her PB of 78.00 was set four years ago and places her at No. 7 on the all-time world performer list. China's Jiale Zhang was the bronze medalist at the World Championships last year in Tokyo and set the world U20 record of 77.24 at a domestic meet in 2025.
Her national teammate Jie Zhao earned bronze at the 2024 Olympics and silver at Tokyo in 2025. Zhao improved her PB to 78.22 in April and she and Zhang have enjoyed a string of solid performances on their U.S. tour. One other noteworthy international competitor is Iceland's Elisabet Runarsdottir, the NCAA champion for Texas State earlier this month.
Full details of the competition are here.