TOUR DE OLYMPICS

naturally competitive at, given his running experience and growing up working as a lifeguard and competing in some open-water swims. Plus, he wanted to go to the 2020 Olympics.

“You can’t just have that idea in your mind of, ‘Maybe I can be pretty good at this,’ but never never actually do it,” he says. “I decided that I was going to do it.”

A triathlon is a fiercely physical competition that includes a 1.5 km swim (.93 mile), 40 km bike (24.8 mile) and 10 km (6.2 mile) run. The top women finish in about two hours. The men are typically around 10 minutes earlier.

Pearson first tested the waters in the summer of 2017 at an age group nationals competition in Nebraska. After not training because he wanted to see his raw talent for the sport, he won it.

Pearson saw potential to compete on an even bigger stage.

“I’ve always been kind of drawn to the idea of being the best in the world at something,” he says.

This winter, two athletes with Front Range roots gear up for the Summer Olympics in Paris

BY WILL MATUSKA

Morgan Pearson was on the way back to his hotel in Paris, France.

He is one of the top triathletes in the world and has taken home podium hardware from multiple international races, including a silver team medal in the 2020 Summer Olympics. He had just gotten out of a swim workout.

It’s the eve of a 2024 Summer Olympics qualifying race called the World Triathlon Olympic Games Test Event Paris. Despite his success, Pearson isn’t planning on lacing up his shoes the next morning. Various injuries and health issues over the previous year and a half meant he wasn’t finishing fast enough to make it on the start list. In fact, he’s third on the waitlist.

Regardless, he wanted to return to the Olympics next summer and thought he had a chance to compete in the qualifier. So he rolled the dice and went to Paris for the qualifier.

“It was kind of tough to go out there and be there and not know if I was going to race or not,” he says.

On the evening before the race, Pearson was losing hope. But then he entered his room and saw a text on his phone: Three people had dropped out.

Fourteen hours before start time, Pearson was in.

“I got really lucky,” he says. “I was the last guy in the race.”

After swimming, biking and running for nearly two hours through The City of Light the next day, Pearson successfully qualified for next summer’s Olympic Games. Now, the athlete with CU Boulder roots is gearing up on the Front Range this winter for another run at the Olympic podium with high aspirations.

“If I can run what I think I can run,” he says, “I think it’ll be very hard to beat me.”

‘THAT WAS FOR THEM’

Pearson grew up in New Jersey, but made his way to CU Boulder in 2012 to join the cross country and track team. Along with helping his cross country team win two national titles and multiple Pac-12 championships, he also took home a few All-American honors.

Pearson fondly remembers his stint in Boulder, even aside from his running success — it was a special time with some of his closest friends. And as a Division 1 runner, there are few things more valuable than a high-calorie meal following a difficult workout. He recalls fueling up with his teammates at a familiar burrito institution.

“We loved Illegal Pete’s on The Hill,” he says.

It wasn’t until a year after college that Pearson started to explore triathlons something he thought he might be

Qualifying for a second Olympics is a dream come true for Pearson. But it was a special moment for him in more ways than one.

Shortly before qualifying for the 2020 Olympics, Pearson’s older brother died unexpectedly. The tragedy hit hard: Pearson took a month off from training and went home to New Jersey to grieve with his family.

When he was ready, he found getting back into exercising to be therapeutic.

“You’re with your family, and it’s just talking, crying and a lot of emotion. And that’s good; you need to go through that,” he says. “Being able to get outside by myself and just bike or run or go swimming was kind of like that release.”

Pearson experienced complex emotions when he qualified for Tokyo because of those circumstances.

“Ten weeks after your brother dies unexpectedly, you achieve a lifelong goal,” he says. “There’s happiness, but it’s, like, not happiness. It was such a strong emotion that I felt.”

He says those feelings came back to the surface after his Olympic-qualifying performance this summer in Paris. That day, it was about more than just him.

“I’m an athlete; it’s a somewhat selfish pursuit. But that day when I qualified, it was for my family,” he says. “That was for them — to give them hope and happiness.”

Spectators weren’t allowed at the last summer Olympics because of COVID-19 restrictions. Next summer’s Olympics should be back to normal, and Pearson is excited for his family to share the experience with him.

The next time he’s in Paris, Pearson will have more than 14 hours to prepare, unlike for the qualifier, before diving into the race. He’s already started mending injuries and building up the volume of his training. Right now, his weekly routine includes biking 14 hours a week, running 60 miles a week, swimming just about every day and sprinkling in physical therapy and massages.

“I know how to train hard,” he says. “And it’s just about execution in the training and the execution on race day.”

This world is littered with inaccuracy.

It rains when the forecast says it won’t. Perfectionists overcook their noodles. Cars are parked too close to the white line. Admittedly, we’ve even missed a few things here at Boulder Weekly

But not Tim Sherry, an elite shooter from Evergreen. For him, precision and consistency are the name of the game.

One of his specialties is an event called the 50 meter Rifle 3 Positions. Picture aiming for a target half a football field away and firing 20 shots from three different positions: kneeling, prone (laying down) and standing. If you hit the bullseye — which has a diameter similar to the width of a pinky finger (10 millimeters) — you get 10 points.

Earlier this year, Sherry set the national record in that event for getting 596 points. Out of 600.

Sherry’s shooting ambitions began in Colorado Springs’ Olympic Training Center before he ever shot a match.

He was just a kid, not even 10 years old, and his dad wanted him to learn basic firearm safety. The shooting range he went to, Cherry Creek Gun Club in southeast Denver, had a competitive junior shooting team and international-style shooting. The coach at the time invited Sherry to watch a competition in Colorado Springs.

At the match, he met a recent NCAA champion, and he also grabbed an autograph from an athlete who took home a gold medal at the Olympics. It was a formative moment for a young Sherry that laid the groundwork for his aspirations to go to college for rifle shooting and compete on the world’s biggest stage.

“That kept me hooked from day one,” Sherry says. “That’s kind of been the path and the motivation ever since then.”

The decorated athlete has achieved many of the lofty aspirations he set for himself after visiting the Olympic Training Center as a kid. This year, he’s coming off two bronze medals at world championships and a silver medal at the Pan American Games. But he’s not quite finished — this winter he has two more Olympicqualifying competitions to punch his ticket to Paris and compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics.

“Getting to go to the Olympics next summer would be a dream come true,” he says. “I’ve had Olympic aspirations since I first learned about the sport, so it will fulfill a long-time goal of mine.”

A Kid From Evergreen

Although he currently lives in Georgia to train with the Army Marksmanship Unit, Sherry still holds strong to his Colorado roots.

“I learned how to skate on Evergreen lake up there,” he says. “That’s a really core memory.”

Sherry misses the tall peaks of the Rockies that he used to frequent, especially with a pair of skis beneath his feet.

“I don’t know how old I was when I first started skiing at Loveland, but I think it was, like, as soon as I could walk,” he says. “My mom wanted to go skiing, so she just dropped us off at their little bunny hill where they had ski lessons, and we were basically at a daycare for the day.”

Even with his love for skiing and the outdoors, shooting was always a priority. He excelled in the sport early on by setting a national record for his age group within six months of picking up a gun.

Moving from a fun hobby to getting serious about the sport as a future was a challenging transition. Sherry couldn’t beat his national record for the next five years and struggled with motivation.

When he was about 15 years old, his coach sat him down to have a “brutally honest” conversation about what it would take to commit to the sport, which likely included spending time away from his family. Sherry knew he had talent in shooting but was on the fence.

“I think having that experience so early on definitely gave me a level of resilience and understanding of what it takes to continue to progress, to find passion in what you’re doing and to really focus on the goals when you’re struggling with motivation,” he says.

In tackling that decision as a teenager, Sherry’s North Star was to be the best in the sport.

“I would get chills down my spine if I had that thought, you know, you’re the best to ever do this or you’re the best in the world,” he says. “That was my motivation and … I built my goals from there.”

Once he made the decision to dedicate his life to the sport, the rest of Sherry’s shooting path going from college to Army Marksman Unit to Olympic hopeful — was laid ahead of him. While his goals have shifted over time, he is now in a position to make those dreams become reality.

The Road To Paris

Sherry says there’s a lot of good competition among his peers on the U.S. national team, but he’s “quietly optimistic” he’ll get a shot at the big stage.

“As long as I continue to be authentic and perform the way I do, and perform consistently, I can come out on top,” he says.

If he makes the cut, Sherry will compete in three events — the 10 meter Air Rifle individual and team, and the 50 meter Rifle 3 Positions.

Along with maintaining consistent physical fitness, Sherry says there’s a strong mental component to shooting and likens it to golfing. To mitigate match-time nerves that can cause a faster heartbeat and shaky muscles that impact shooting accuracy, he has a toolbox of different breathing and visualization strategies.

Being fit — both physically and mentally — helps him overcome those challenges. But in a sport with miniscule room for error, it boils down to practice.

“One thing I heard a lot when I was growing up was, ‘It’s not practice makes perfect,’ but, ‘Perfect practice makes perfect,’” he says. “At this point, I’ve stopped believing in perfection, but the idea is still there that you’re trying to train and practice at such a refined level so you can kind of go on autopilot when you get to the competition … you’re not trying to outperform yourself.”

Shooting is more than hitting a target for Sherry. He says he’s learned life skills about being resilient, working toward goals and functioning as a team. The sport has also taken him through college and around the world.

“I’d love for more people to be able to give shooting a try, whether it’s [competitive] or not,” he says. “I think it’d be cool if more people can give it a shot.”