Tori Peeters' Olympic Games selection confirmed
Javelin thrower Tori Peeters - who grew up in Southland - has been included in the 15-strong New Zealand athletics team to head to 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
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One of New Zealand sport’s most determined and resilient athletes is Olympic Games-bound.
Javelin thrower Tori Peeters - who grew up in Southland - has been included in the 15-strong New Zealand athletics team to head to 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
It has followed a lengthy and bumpy path to reach her guest to compete at an Olympic Games.
Peeters had felt she had done enough to book a trip to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic Games, and also to be competitive when she got there.
The New Zealand Olympic Committee selection formula suggested otherwise.
“It was pretty brutal. There was a lot of frustration, a lot of anger. Let’s be honest it’s a bloody roller-coaster when you are being told all sorts of information, left, right, and centre, and you don’t get to achieve that goal you had aimed for,” Peeters said at the time.
In a sporting environment that not only requires a high level of training but also the not-so-small task of funding a campaign as an elite athlete, others may have walked into the sporting wilderness following that disappointment.
Peeters has stuck at.
Peeters has worked closely with Invercargill-based mental skills coach Jason McKenzie and has had help with funding support from the likes of SBS Bank and Community Trust South in Southland.
Peeters has continued to break her own New Zealand’s women’s javelin record.
At last year’s World Athletics Championships she finished 13th, just out of the top 12 which advance to the final.
She was just 7cm shy of the 12th-placed qualifier – defending world champion Kelsey-Lee Barber of Australia.
The New Zealand athletics contingent for Paris is headed by recent world indoor championship gold medallists, high jumper Hamish Kerr and middle-distance runner Geordie Beamish, who will make his Games debut.
Eliza McCartney's confirmed for her return, while fellow pole vaulters Olivia McTaggart and Imogen Ayris are selected subject to performance conditions.
Shot put trio Tom Walsh, Jacko Gill, and Maddi Wesche, sprinter Zoe Hobbs and 1500 metre runner Sam Tanner also feature - as does discus thrower Connor Bell.
18-year-old Ethan Olivier is set to become the first New Zealand triple jumper to compete at an Olympics since 1960 in Rome.
The Paris Olympic Games will run from July 26 to August 11.
Well Done Tori... that is Awesome and you so deserve it... Go knock their socks off ! :)