California Native Describes His Olympic Experience

Speaker 1: 00:00 The Tokyo Olympics wrapped up this past weekend with a U us leading an overall metal count. One of those metals was won by Brian burrows, who is from Fallbrook. He got a bronze for team traps shooting. He spoke with California report hose, Saul Gonzales. Here's that interview. What Speaker 2: 00:17 Was your Olympic experience? It's like Speaker 3: 00:19 A life-changing honestly, uh, it's just one of those crazy trips where you go, uh, you leave and you come back and you've accomplished something you've worked on for your entire life. And it still hasn't really fully hit me, but it's a, it's been a good couple of weeks Speaker 2: 00:37 In a single minute. That's gone by honestly, where you haven't thought to yourself, Hey, I'm an Olympic medalist. Speaker 3: 00:44 Actually. There's a bunch of minutes where I forget that I am, and then I look over and I see it, or I feel it in my pocket because it never leaves my side now. And I'm like, wow. I met all that. The Olympics kind of surprises me. Let's Speaker 2: 00:57 Talk about the Olympic games. And COVID, these Olympics were staged at a very bizarre time in world history and public health history. Did that affect it in any substantial way for you? Did you think you had a strange Olympics? Did you had you think he had something less than a normal life? Speaker 3: 01:18 I don't know about less than normal Olympics, but it was different than what I thought it would be from the respect where there was no crowd. There was no, nobody was cheering. There was nobody in the stands. You know, you think about when you you're on the podium and you raise your hand and you're super excited and you look out into, you know, a screaming crowd and all that energy that you're feeding off of. And we just didn't really have that, you know, there's maybe 10 people in the stands, so that was different and there's cameras all around, which was great because my family and friends got to experience that with me, but it was just different in that sense, it was quiet. And Speaker 2: 01:58 How life back in the Olympic village were you able to meet other athletes, both from the U S and from other countries, do you think you had a good amount of interaction with, with other people competing? Um, Speaker 3: 02:09 For the most part, uh, the countries and the teams kept to themselves and, you know, it's fair enough to, you know, it's, every person is a potential to take you out of the Olympics. You know, if you test positive or they test positive. So I definitely got to spend some time with some of the other us athletes, water, polo, baseball, things like that. But the other countries outside of going to the shooting range, we didn't really get to spend too much time with the other countries, which I think is different from past Olympics. Speaker 2: 02:42 I know, no, you're still wrapping your head around the experience. You're still in the afterglow of it all, but, but what do you think happens? How does this change your life in the coming days, weeks, months, even years, if you thought about that a bit. Speaker 3: 02:58 Well, they say once you're Olympian, you're Olympian forever. Uh, there are no past Olympians, so I've entered into a fraternity of sorts as part of them, what they, you know, being part of the Olympics and there's different events. And there's a whole, I guess, society of Olympians. So that's one way that my life, I guess, has changed, but just being able to tell my family, friends, my kids, my grandkids, and show them that I went to the Olympics and I metaled, I think it's just going to be, you know, a change to my life forever and maybe open some doors. I wouldn't otherwise be open, but it's just fun to experience and share that, that moment. And then an Olympic medal with other people, you know, and try not to like show it off. But I do want to like show people like, Hey, this is what a metal looks like. Cause not many people have held one or seen one. So, um, I definitely like to show other people what it's all about. Speaker 2: 03:56 All right. That was Brian burrows, Olympic bronze medalist and trap shooting for the United States. Brian, thanks so much for joining us today and more importantly. Congratulations. Speaker 3: 04:07 Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 04:11 That was local Olympian. Brian Burroughs speaking with the California reports, solid Gonzalez.