ProRodeo Sports News - Sept. 4, 2020

CATCHING UP WITH ... CORY CHECK

Check It Out PRCA ProRodeo file photo Cory Check’s 95-point ride on Big Bend Rodeo’s Copenhagen Rapid Fire at the 2001 RAM National Circuit Finals Rodeo remains a record. Olympian, NCFR

BY MATT NABER C ory Check might not remember making ProRodeo history, but people at the 2001 National Circuit Finals Rodeo likely remember.

Check went on to win an Olympic gold medal for helping the U.S. beat the Canadian rodeo team. “He rode Rapid Fire dead easy,” lifelong

record-holder stays connected to rodeo

friend and six-time NFR bull rider Fred Boettcher said. “As a matter of fact, The Cowboy Channel is playing replays and I saw that ride on TV and was like, ‘Gosh, darn, I forgot how good he was.’” Check and Boettcher, a former PRCA bull riding representative, are still extremely close and enjoy giving each other a hard time. “But then he (Check) got fat and enjoyed being home too much,” Boettcher joked. “Even when we competed, he was buying and selling bulls. At the 2000 NFR he bought a bull, and I was like, what the heck are you going to do, put him in your car?” LITTLE CHECK TO BIG CHECK Despite not coming from a rodeo family, Check and his younger

Two bull riders posted record-setting 95-point rides at the 2001 NCFR – Felipe Aragon during Round 1 on Flying 5 Rodeo’s Skoal’s Border Patrol and Check in the semifinals on Big Bend Rodeo’s Copenhagen Rapid Fire. At the time, Check wasn’t thinking about a world title or a trip to the National Finals Rodeo. He was thinking about the Olympics. Winning the 2001 NCFR was one of five ways to score a spot representing the U.S. at the 2002 Olympic Command Performance Rodeo in Salt Lake City. “It’s almost like I remember it, but I don’t remember it,” said Check, 43. “I hit a zone I had never been in before. Gary Leffew was there, and he said that guys can only dream of getting in the zone like I did.”

ProRodeo Sports News 9/4/2020

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