Sergei Evglevski

Sergei Evglevski’s favourite sporting moment happened in a classroom and involved taking his mother’s Olympic bronze medal to show and tell.

Lalita Yauhleuskaya competed for Belarus at the 1996 and 2000 Games, winning a bronze medal at Sydney in the 25m pistol, then attended four Games for Australia between 2004 to 2016. Sergei’s father Sergei Evglevski Snr twice acted as gunsmith for the Australian Olympic Teams.

Sergei followed in his mother’s footsteps with his selection on the Australian Olympic Team for Tokyo 2020. It became the seventh consecutive occasion a member of his family has competed in an Olympic Games.

Sergei started shooting in 2012 and developed his skills at the Yarra Pistol Club in Melbourne.
"I began my sport because my mum was so successful in shooting and it motivated me to try and achieve as much success as her," he said.

He began competing internationally in 2015 and immediately made an impression winning junior and open Oceania titles in the men’s 10m air pistol and men’s 25m rapid fire pistol respectively.

In 2017 he bagged six junior World Cup medals including four bronze and two silver across the men’s 25m standard pistol, pistol, and rapid fire pistol events.

The same year he added a further two Oceania Championships medals to his collection, winning gold in the men’s 25m rapid pistol and silver in the men’s 10m air pistol.

At the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, Sergei won a silver medal in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol.

In 2020 Seregei achieved a clean sweep of Australia’s Olympic trials, winning all four events to lock in his position on the team. At the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Sergei finished 17th in the men’s rapid fire pistol.

He claimed his first ISSF World Cup medal in 2023, silver, when he finished runner-up in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol in Jakarta.

Sergei was also part of the Australian team that won a quota for the Olympics at the Oceania Championships in November – coming second overall behind teammate Scott Anderson.

He said his training leading into the Paris Olympics will be technical, but will also focus on building strength.

“I’m focusing on the physical aspect of the shooting, building up strength. And my aim and technique of pulling trigger as smoothly as possible,” he said.

“Shooting, and especially in my event, you need to build up your strength and resistance-building strength. The gun itself might not be too heavy, but when you’re holding it out in one hand and it’s 1.5-2kgs of weight and you’re trying to be as steady as possible and trying to aim and hit something smaller than an apple in a certain amount of time, it’s difficult.

“And also cardio, because you want to be able to bring your resting heart rate down so that’s not taking over.”

Sergei says he is driven by a desire to perform better than he did in Tokyo.

“Being my first Olympics, there was a lot of sleepless nights and I doubted myself in the sense of, am I ready to be here? Can I perform? Have I done the training?” he said.

“I didn’t perform the best I could, but I was proud I gave it my all and didn’t give up.

“I can’t change the result, but that attitude is definitely something I can take to Paris.”