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RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — The 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil are over, but far from Rio, hidden in a shop in Elk Creek Valley east of Piedmont, three potential future Olympians are training under the sharp-shooter eye of coach Scott Johnson.
Their sport is rifle shooting, and an Olympic berth may be in the sights of three area teens, two from Douglas High School in Box elder and one from Sturgis Brown High School, the Rapid City Journal (http://bit.ly/2bzv3Qu ) reported.
The trio has been training for more than eight years, learning the sport through 4-H and becoming more competitive with each pull of the trigger.
The Junior Olympics followed, where they found success. Now, Kaycee Szymanski, Cole Thompson and Rylie Shull will head to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs at the end of the month to train with Amy Sowash, a member of the 2010 World Champion air rifle team.
During a practice session on Wednesday, the trio of Black Hills shooters took aim at small black targets less than two inches in diameter as they fired their air rifles. They stood 10 meters down range, steadied their rifles, controlled their breathing, and squeezed the trigger.
Despite not being able to see exactly where the pellet hit the target, the shooters could still instinctively tell when they are only a few millimeters off the bull's-eye.
"A nine at six o'clock," Shull said, a reference to him shooting just below the bull's-eye but still scoring nine out of 10 points — a difference of .5 centimeters. He made a slight shift in his stance, moving his back foot, and shot again.
"That one was a 10," Shull said with a smile.
Szymanski, Thompson and Shull will join five other shooters from eastern South Dakota in attending a special camp for only them at the Olympic Training Center, where Sowash will coach them.
"It's a great chance for them to get some Olympic quality coaching," Johnson said.
Almost anyone can pull a trigger, but competitive shooting is not easily mastered. Finding comfort with a gun and developing proper technique are the building blocks for realizing Olympic potential.
Szymanski, Thompson and Shull all learned through the 4-H shooting program. Coaches quickly noticed they had talent, likely due to prior experience.
"My dad was a shooter and he wanted me to learn the sport," Szymanski said. "I started a year before Rylie and Cole, I started shooting BB guns for a couple of years, then I moved up to air rifles and got more focused on the competitive side."
Johnson also is close friends with Szymanski's father, and he said he could tell Kaycee was taking an interest in shooting from a young age.
"Her dad and I shot, and still shoot together," Johnson said.
The senior at Sturgis Brown High School said she hopes to pursue shooting in college; she is beginning her senior year and looking at colleges in Kentucky, home to top college shooting programs.
"My number one goal is to get into shooting in college, and I've been talking to coaches," she said.
Sowash, who will be working with Szymanski, also attended the University of Kentucky.
Rylie Shull is a junior at Douglas High School and got started later, but said as soon he started learning about shooting, he knew he had a new passion.
"I started about eight years ago in the 4-H program," he said. "I've always been interested in guns and I really like shooting."
Szymanski and Shull have been teammates for the last three 4-H national contests in multiple shooting sports.
For Cole Thompson, it was one of his friends that introduced him to the sport, and he said now he uses shooting a gun to wind down.
"One of my friends told me about it, and it sounded fun," Thompson said. "For me it's a lot of fun, I've been around guns all my life, and believe it or not, it actually helps me relax."
Of course, with any friendship there are rivalries, especially when the three graduated from 4-H to Junior Olympics and even competed in National Rifle Association contests.
"The rivalry is definitely friendly but gets intense at times," Szymanski said. "Between myself, Rylie and Cole, we all know we're going to try very hard."
"It's friendly," Thompson said. "We obviously want to be better than each other, but we also want them to do well."
The Olympic Training Center is opening its doors for eight shooters from South Dakota at the end of August, and the three West River athletes hope to learn a lot.
"I'm looking to get basic position improvements," Szymanski said. "I want to improve how I am as a shooter, pulling away additional information that I can give to other people."
The idea was the brain child of Sioux Falls-based coach Dempster Christianson, who has five shooters of his own that he is taking to the camp.
Christianson used his shooting connections to get the athletes to Colorado Springs.
"It's a small group across the state, and Dempster's son was very close to making the Olympics," he said. "Dempster has interacted with a lot of the athletes down there, and through a mutual acquaintance the camp happened."
Shull and Thompson also look at the camp as an opportunity to get better.
"I just want to improve myself, I want to get better," Shull said. "I feel like I'm going to learn a lot from it."
Thompson said the local coaches are great, but he thinks it will be valuable to gain perspective from an Olympian.
"It's pretty cool," he said. "I've only really had coaches in Rapid City, and to be coached by an Olympian is going to be awesome."
U.S. competitors have done well in shooting events in past Olympic games. Johnson said all three athletes are in a position to compete for a shot to make a future Olympic team, but they all know the road won't be easy.
"It's like any other of the sports, it's a long and difficult road to get there, it takes a lot of sacrifices," he said. "They all have potential, they're all good, but it's like anything else, you need to show mental and physical toughness."
The sport itself isn't as popular as some of the other sports in the Olympics, and even in a state that loves the outdoors and guns as much as South Dakota, popularity in competitive shooting isn't high, according to Johnson.
"It's kind of a niche sport," he said. "It's an expensive sport that is very time consuming, so it's getting smaller every year. I've been shooting since the 90's and I would love to see more participation in it, but South Dakota has rodeo and baseball."
The trio said to qualify for the Junior Olympics, a precursor to making an Olympic team, a shooter has to be the state champion in their age group or hit a qualifying score.
"It's stressful," Shull said. "There's a lot of practice that goes into making the Junior Olympics, and the competition is really tough."
Although Johnson has stressed to his shooters how difficult it is to make the Olympic team, it hasn't deterred Shull, Szymanski and Thompson from dreaming of competing in the red, white and blue.
"That's my lifelong dream," Shull said.
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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
An AP Member Exchange shared by the Rapid City Journal.
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