US under-18 archery champion and junior Christian Stoddard has made the decision to leave PHS, and shift his full focus to archery.

Stoddard will be training in the US Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado, where he will be practicing for around seven hours each day.

“Training consists of running, weight training and tons and tons of shooting,” Stoddard said. 

Although grueling, Stoddard enjoys training, and plans on eventually competing for the United States in the Olympics in the near future.

“I’ll be doing the 2024 Olympic trials, and I think I’ll get pretty far in those. Realistically though, I don’t think I’ll make it. But for the 2028 trials I think I have a very good chance,” Stoddard said.

 “It’s been really cool to get to see him compete at such a high level,” Junior Seve Sanchez said

Stoddard traveled to the Dominican Republic during the week of Sept. 5, and is now in Korea to train with their national team.

“The Koreans are by far the best in the world at Archery. It’ll be really insightful to see how they train,” Stoddard said.

Stoddard first became interested in archery during his 4th grade class trip to Camp Augusta.

“After that [Christian] and our dad went to an archery range to try it again. They came home with two new bows, and from there he got really into it,” Chase Stoddard, Christian’s twin brother, said.

Since then Christian has made tremendous progress in the sport, but that hasn’t dampened his love for archery.

“For me, although winning is any athlete’s main focus, I still really enjoy the sport of archery and getting to shoot. You can’t get sucked into the idea of winning, it’s important to stay in the present”.

Stoddard will be continuing his studies at Laurel Springs online school.

“I’ll probably fit my classes in early in the morning, during lunch breaks, and later at night,” Stoddard said. “I’m a bit nervous to see how I will manage it, but I’m confident that I can do all the work and still have it high-quality”.