Australia picks Boukouvalas over Tyack for Paris 2024 Olympics

Archery Australia has named first-time Olympians Laura Paeglis, 22, and Peter Boukouvalas, 25, to its team for Paris 2024.

“It’s almost hard to believe, after so many years of training and fighting towards this goal, to be in this position is really exciting,” said Paeglis. “This has been a dream of mine for a long time and to be selected is just the best feeling in the world.”

Paeglis and Ryan Tyack qualified spots by winning the mixed team event at the Pacific Games.

Internal selections to decide who’d fill them took place over the three stages of the Hyundai Archery World Cup in 2024, with the decision rumoured to rest on each archer’s arrow average across all phases and all events (including teams).

Ultimately, Boukouvalas was picked ahead of two-time Olympian Tyack, who was a team bronze medallist with Australia in 2016.

“To wear the Olympic Rings and the green and gold has always been a dream of mine,” he said. “It feels surreal. I am not sure it has fully sunk in yet.”

Boukouvalas was individual runner-up at the Pacific Games to Tyack.

Paeglis went to the Youth Olympic Games in 2018 and won that multisport event in Honora last year. 

Competition at the 2024 Olympics starts with qualifying on 25 July.