{"id":3558,"date":"2020-06-04T11:46:53","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T01:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/in-sight-with-sergei-evglevski\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T15:11:04","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T05:11:04","slug":"in-sight-with-sergei-evglevski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/in-sight-with-sergei-evglevski\/","title":{"rendered":"In Sight with Sergei Evglevski"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ustream.tv\/embed\/recorded\/126850458?autoplay=true\" style=\"border: 0;\" webkitallowfullscreen allowfullscreen frameborder=\"no\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Sergei is stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Sergei Evglevski\u2019s family is a big name in the world of shooting.<\/p>\n<p>His bloodlines are shooting royalty. He is the son of an Olympic bronze medallist and a six-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, and a two-time Australian Olympic team gunsmith. You can find what his mother Lalita Yauhleuskaya and father Sergei Evglevski Snr don\u2019t know about shooting on the back of a postage stamp.<\/p>\n<p>If there was anyone destined to follow them in the world of shooting, then it was a young Sergei. \u201cI was always really interested in it. My parents could tell from a young age,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>As a child he would join his mother on the medal podium at events in Australia and proudly take her medals to school to show off to his mates. Her three gold and one silver medal won at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games earned him special privileges when in primary school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember having the whole day off as the principal asked me to go to every classroom and pass around the Commonwealth Games medals. That was pretty grouse,\u201d he proudly recalled.<\/p>\n<p>Taking her Sydney 2000 Olympic Games 25m Pistol bronze medal, when representing Belarus, to school took some convincing, but eventually she relented.<\/p>\n<p>Sergei\u2019s own international shooting career commenced in 2015 when competing in the Junior World Cup in Germany. The dye was caste. A year later, he earned Junior World Cup silver and bronze medals in Germany and Azerbaijan. An international shooting career was truly launched.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, he was a regular on the senior World Cup circuit competing in Germany, Mexico and Korea. As he aimed to carve out his own career, his parents offered some sage advice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey told me not to listen to anyone. A lot of the (international) coaches now were shooters with mum,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t realise it was going to be true, but a lot of people would come up to me and say you\u2019re the son of Lalita and Sergei and I hope you shoot as good as them. It would give me that extra pressure. They (my parents) told me to acknowledge it, but don\u2019t pay any attention to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a rare honour in any field of sport, he and his mother were Australian team-mates at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n<p>It was the last of Lalita\u2019s five Commonwealth Games appearances and Sergei\u2019s first. He won a silver medal in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol while she was unplaced in the 25m Sports Pistol final. Lalita was bursting with pride as Sergei claimed a podium finish. On this day, Sergei was much more than just a team-mate. He was flesh and blood.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4862\" src=\"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/30420524_10210215933629875_6335677433314636800_o-300x300-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"331\" height=\"331\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was bawling her eyes out. My first thought when she started crying was \u2018oh no, I only got a silver medal. That\u2019s why she was crying\u2019. That was my competitive side coming out. But she was crying with joy and being so proud of me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe went to a Channel Seven interview and she couldn\u2019t speak. She was tearing up. She was saying \u2018I\u2019m so happy for him.\u2019 It was pretty emotional, and I started tearing up as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sergei is grateful for his Commonwealth Games experience as it provided him with a high level of understanding of being part of a major, multi-sport competition such as the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt definitely prepared me because I was able to dip my toe in the water and now, I can dive in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>After the Gold Coast Games, Lalita announced her retirement. Forty years of high-level competition led to debilitating elbow and back problems which only firing the chamber for the last time could heal.<\/p>\n<p>Lalita enjoyed a 20-year, five Olympics association \u2013 two for Belarus and three for Australia \u2013 and Sergei will head to his first Olympics in Tokyo next year. The family\u2019s Olympic handover is now complete, and the Games dynasty is set to continue for decades to come.<\/p>\n<p>Sergei enjoyed a consistent, high-performing Olympic nomination event series registering four consecutive qualifying scores of 580 and over to comfortably secure Australia\u2019s single Rapid Fire Pistol quota position.<\/p>\n<p>He equalled his personal best qualifying score of 584 in the last qualifying event in Sydney \u2013 a score which would have been good enough to reach the top six final at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did perform well, and I was happy with myself. But there\u2019s always so much to improve on. There\u2019s always little things you can do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel as though I\u2019ve only done half the job because the goal for me is to perform at the Olympics to the best of my ability. Making the team was a short-term goal, but I so proud of myself because I had the goal to perform under the pressure,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>With over 12 months until the Olympics, Sergei is focusing on training and completing the final three units for his marketing degree at Victoria University.<\/p>\n<p>Assisting him in his Tokyo preparation has been the Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS) where he has access to strength and conditioning experts, sports psychologists and nutritionists.<\/p>\n<p>The VIS strength program is presently focusing on better posture when shooting and the ability to hold his posture for a longer amount of time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you have an air pistol match for two hours, can you start slouching and your neck can start bending so you want to hold that posture for long periods of time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has prevented Sergei from shooting at his home club, Yarra Pistol Club. But when restrictions are fully lifted, he will be training for 2-3 hours a day under the watchful eye of national pistol coach, Vladimir Galiabovitch.<\/p>\n<p>He realises the standard of the Olympic competition will be high, but he knows he has the talent and technical ability to compete with the world\u2019s best on the biggest international sports stage. He says his biggest challenge will be to be fully mentally focused and to complete a full match without any mistakes or regrets.<\/p>\n<p>However, a medal in Tokyo is not his primary focus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe goal I\u2019ve set for myself is to prove to people and the whole shooting world, not just to be Lalita\u2019s son but being my own shooter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He is already well down the road to being his own world class shooter and maybe, in years to come, Lalita Yauhleuskaya will be known as Sergei Evglevski\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Sergei is stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight Sergei Evglevski\u2019s family is a big name in the world of shooting. His bloodlines are shooting royalty. He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-sight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3560,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions\/3560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}