COMPETITIONS
HOW TO BUILD AN OLYMPIAN Youth Shooter Phenom Lance Thompson Shoots For The 2020 Summer Games STORY BY DANA FARRELL * PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN THOMPSON
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ourteen-year-old Lance Thompson of Carlisle, Pa., has spent the last several years of his life with one goal in mind – competing in the 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo. As an Olympic trapshooting hopeful and honor student, Thompson maintains an intense, disciplined schedule that includes shooting up to four days a week during the school year and living full time at a training center during the summer. This arrangement allows him to train every day when school’s out. While living at the training center he stays with one of the team members, a 25-year-old female shooter, in an efficiency apartment 100 yards from the range. This summer marks his third season living at the center.
FINDING HIS CALLING Lance found his calling in a roundabout way when his dad enrolled him in an NRA shotgun class at their local gun club. Although he was only 9 years old at the time, Lance was big for his age and the instructor made an exception. He allowed him to participate in a class that normally required a minimum age of 12. Now, 6 feet tall and 160 pounds, Lance says that even at age 9, he was one of the best shooters in the class. His mother and father, realizing their son had a gift for pointing a shotgun, saw to it that he began training in the sport of Olympic trap at the prestigious Keystone Shooting Park, in Dalmatia, Pa., north of Harrisburg. “I am not an Olympic trapshooter, so this isn’t ‘Dad’s dream,’” says Lance’s father, John. “I never even knew what Olympic trapshooting was until Lance started shooting it. So it’s not like I’m an old ATA shooter and got my kid
Lance Thompson started shooting shotguns at age 9, and in five short years he is now competing internationally and training for the 2020 summer Olympic Games.
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