BILLINGS — In south Billings lives one of the most decorated archers in the world, Brady Ellison.
Ellison is currently in Paris with his family competing for the gold.
MTN News spoke with his wife and friends back home who are cheering for him from the sidelines.
"It's awesome to have a best friend there at the Olympics," said Kris Schaff, a local archer and one of Ellison's friends.
"It's just inspirational and pretty awesome," said Jimmy Lutz, who shoots archery with Schaff and Ellison.
The United States sees Ellison as a world champion athlete, but Lutz and Schaff see him as a chill best friend.
"It's really strange when I go on TV to turn on archery, and I see Brady's picture when I click on the channel. I mean, it's cool. It's weird, you know. Like, Brady, he's such a good guy that everything is so deserved for him," said Lutz.
Ellison and teammate Casey Kaufhold defeated India in the mixed team bronze medal match Friday, earning Team USA’s first-ever mixed team medal at an Olympic Games.
This is now Ellison's fifth Olympics and fourth Olympic medal.
Ellison will next shoot on Sunday in a last 16 contest with Berkim Tumer of Turkey after both shooters advanced through two elimination rounds on Thursday.
His wife, Toja Ellison, who is also a professional archer, couldn't be more proud.
"I cried. I cried. Like, there was so many emotions, because, first, I know how much it means to him. This was actually a historic medal for USA," she said.
Ellison is only 35 years old and placed seventh in men's recurve bow at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Lutz and Schaff have been big supporters of his, watching from behind their TV screens.
"With Paris, now that there's fans there and everything, it just feels a little bit different than Tokyo," said Lutz.
"We're friends. We're best friends. We push each other. Like, we're enemies when we're practicing so that we can still be competitive and (feel) how the nerves and everything should feel with our equipment," said Schaff.
"There is so much work put into being able to perform on such a high level at the Games. Every single day of the day for years, 10 years, 20 years, he has been doing this," said Toja.
This is now her third Olympics with Brady.
Ellison is expected to return back to Billings Monday night. He will soon return to his Montana life, where he hosts archery in his basement and yard. But first, he has a trip planned with Schaff where the two will be attending an archery competition in Texas.
