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Elon University assistant athletics coach Laura Igaune represented her homeland, Latvia, at the 2020 Olympics this summer. She participated in the hammer throw portion of the track and field competition.
Igaune’s Olympic journey began in 2019, when she threw an Olympic qualifying mark of 71.61 meters at the Duke Invitational.
“I started athletics [when] I was 17. I’m actually going to narrow down a lot of events to one of them… I knew people who went to the Olympics, ”Igaune said.
Igaune’s Olympic training process is no different than any competition and his career as a professional athlete. She said she was training to improve herself, not for something specific.
“Usually I don’t specify training for the Olympics, I just train. If I can do it, I do it there. And you just continue the process, ”Igaune said. “This is not the event or the magnitude of [the] event, but day-to-day training. It is literally training your body, it is training to get better.
Igaune’s preparation period was longer than she wanted. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, she expected the games to still take place that summer. In June of the same year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that the games were to be postponed until it was safe to travel abroad.
“During the preparation period, I guess it was longer than I actually needed or expected due to a pandemic and things like that. So we figured out how we can start the competition a little earlier, you know, neither did I catch COVID, ”said Igaune. “You’ve worked through this and I think overall it’s given me a tremendous amount of experience, not just the Olympics themselves, but also the preparation period of what to do and what to do. not to do. Because you can learn from both situations and I think I did for this year.
Igaune’s peers and students admire her as someone who stays disciplined, focused and intelligent as she leads her life as a professional athlete and coach.
Cross country head coach Kevin Jermyn said he was able to learn from Igaune and his work ethic.
“I like to learn from her. His nutrition is better than any human I have ever known. So it opens my doors in terms of the effects of great nutrition in getting someone to much higher levels of athletic performance, ”he said. “And so I not only like being around her work ethic, but definitely just learning from all the things she’s learned over the years.”
Kristine Strazdite, a senior Latvian hammer thrower recruited by Igaune, said Igaune motivates her to work harder and dream big.
“At this point, she’s honestly just my role model, I’m obsessed with her. She is awesome. She is literally Olympian and has a normal life. She’s a coach, she has a full-time job, ”Strazdite said. “It’s crazy, because most Olympians are literally just professional athletes. They don’t do nothing but practice it.
Igaune emphasizes the importance of being patient with anyone who wants to achieve a higher level of competitive play.
“I guess my two things that I could give any athlete or even young athletes, just be patient and trust the process. And these are two things. And I stick to it daily, weekly, annually, you just have to be patient, you have to trust the process, and everything else will come.
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