When the Blue Mountains Gazette last spoke to athlete Luke Boyes he was 13 years old, and had just placed fourth in a track event at the Australian Little Athletics Championships.
Now, at 20 years old, Boyes has beaten out an Olympic finalist in that same distance at the Australian Track and Field Championships.
"It was a good feeling. I'm not normally too emotional after my races, but I was holding back tears a little bit after," he told the Gazette.
On April 14, Boyes stunned the crowd at Adelaide's SA Athletics Stadium with a record-breaking win in the 800m race, narrowly outpacing Olympian Peter Bol by less than half a second.
While he won the day, his final time fell short of qualifying for the Olympics by three hundredths of a second. The bittersweet victory has only spurred him on in his hopes of competing in Paris.
"Unfortunately I didn't get the qualifier, but going into the race I didn't expect to be anywhere near the qualifier. So I can't complain now that I've missed out, I'm just so happy that I've gotten as close as I am," Boyes said.
"Now... it's just about what I need to do over the next [months] to push for that qualifier and try and cement a spot on that plane to Paris by the end of June."
Raised in Hazelbrook, Boyes ran track until he was 13, when he won the Australian Little Athletics Championship in 2017.
He said he fell out of love with the sport around that point and decided to try cricket, and it wasn't until COVID that he was once again running the track with dreams of becoming a professional athlete.
After weeks of training under Blue Mountains Coach Ben St Lawrence, a stellar performance at Boyes' next race in Narrabeen cemented his return to running.
"I'm very happy that I'm back. It feels like a completely different sport now, being an adult," he said.
"I think having that career when I was younger, then stepping away and coming back, have [together] really helped me to progress as an athlete to where I've gotten now."
Living in Glenbrook today, Boyes said he still thinks the Blue Mountains is "the best place in the world to live and to train".
"Having the whole National Park you can go run for 20, 25 kilometres and not see another person... how good it is, how good the running community is up here, the opportunities we have to go run on fire trails everywhere; I think it's pretty unparalleled, from my experiences."
With his recent win cutting so close to outright qualifying, Boyes is now planning his next events for his best shot at securing a place at this year's Olympics in Paris.
Looking back on his decision to leave track after his championship win at 13, Boyes recalled a chance meeting with cricketer Moises Henriques that changed his perspective.
"I asked him about what I needed to do [to improve]... I remember he told me: 'Whatever you do before 16 doesn't matter'. And that's pretty much always stuck with me," Boyes said.
"When I was 10 to 12, I was coming last in my state races. I think I came second last, third last, fourth last... I left, went and played another sport, and have come back.
"It goes to show that a lot can happen, there's a lot of time for things to change. So don't give up hope too quickly."
