Richmond Champion Accomplishing Things While at Home

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Bareback rider Richmond Champion, like all PRCA contestants, would love to be rodeoing right now.
That’s not the case with rodeos on hold due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.

Champion is making the most of his free time at his home in Stevensville, Mont., with his wife, Paige Lawrence, who was a pairs figure skater for Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

“I’ve just been doing yard work, fishing and staying in the gym,” Champion said. “Basically, anything I have been putting off for over a year now, it’s time to get that stuff done. I’m enjoying being home as much as I can.”

Keeping busy is helping Champion maintain his sanity with quarantines in place.

“You have the immediate gratification of doing yard work and starting projects,” Champion said. “It has definitely taken the edge off wanting to be on the road. I’m just trying to look at it from a different perspective. Instead of saying, ‘I’m stuck at home, I can’t go rodeoing,’ I get to be home now, and I will get to go rodeoing when the time comes.”

Champion is a five-time qualifier for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo – 2014, 2016-19. He finished a career-best second in the 2017 PRCA | RAM World Standings with $268,511. A year ago, Champion finished fourth in the world standings with $238,983.

Champion won Round 1 at the 2019 Wrangler NFR with a round-record, 91.5-point ride on Pickett Pro Rodeo’s Night Crawler.

Courtesy of PRCA