A month ago, we introduced you to a 14-year-old boy who was defying the odds: qualifying for the rifle junior Olympics.
It’s thanks to donations from people in the area that the Granville teen was able to experience this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — and become the first-ever parashooter from North Dakota.
“It was ginormous! The building was huge. There was tons of people there,” said Wyatt Rollman.
That was Rollman’s reaction when he arrived in Hillsdale, Michigan for the junior Olympics.
He competed for two days against four other parashooters.
“He impressed everybody with his scores and sticking with it,” said Jeff Whillock, Wyatt’s shooting coach.
“The bronze medal, with a score of 1189.8, Wyatt Rollman.”
“I…I guess I was speechless! I had really nothing to say except I kept a smile on my face,” Rollman said.
“Right after he shot, I knew there was nothing more that I could do and I was getting no awards so I took off and headed home. And I didn’t know ’till I called him later that afternoon or late that afternoon and asked, ‘How’d it go?’ And he said, ‘I got bronze,'” said Whillock.
Wyatt’s score improved more than 100 points from January 2020 to what he scored last week.
And he says he’s just getting started.
“He can go and go for the next level or he can be happy with where he’s at and just hunt. That’s, that’s his call. You know, if he wants to go farther, we’ll just keep working on it,” said Whillock.
So, what’s next? Are you happy with what you got or do you want to go back?
“I’m gonna go bigger and better!” Rollman said.
Rollman says he’s going to spend the next year practicing to go back to the Junior Olympics in 2022.