In a sport where consistency is vital, Rod Boll was consistently great.
The Fillmore trapshooter earned an incredible list of titles in a competitive shooting career that spanned five decades and saw him compete around the world.
As an International-Style trapshooter, Boll was a member of the Canadian national ‘A’ team from 1993 to 2005 competing in International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) (known as the International Shooting Union before 1998) events.
When double trap made its Olympic debut at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, so too did Boll. He scored 130 out of a possible 150 and finished 19th overall.
He competed at the 1995 Pan American Games in Mar del Plata, Argentina and was part of the team that won gold with a record score in the double trap. Boll returned to participate in the 2003 Pan American Games held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
In total Boll won four gold medals, one silver medal and five bronze medals in ISSF competition. At his World Cup debut, he won individual gold in double trap in Cuba in 1994 and the Canadian team finished second in men’s double team trap. He was part of the Canadian team that won a bronze medal in Peru in 1995 and he won an individual bronze medal in Peru in 1996.
Closer to home, Boll also won the Canadian International Trapshooting Championship’s double trap title four times (1995, 2000, 2004 & 2006), while also finishing second four times and third four more times.
Boll also spent decades competing at North American Style Trap events hosted by the Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA).
In 1988, he won the ATA Champion of Champions competition with a record score after hitting all 400 targets. He won six ATA titles plus three second-place finished and one third-place showing.
In 1992, he was a member of the Saskatchewan team that won the Clay Target Team Championship at the Grand American World Tournament which began in 1896 and features more than 5,000 competitors annually. They beat Iowa in a shoot-off to become the first, and only, Canadian team to win that event in its history.
Boll has also won 23 major Canadian Trapshooting Association (CTA) National Championships. In addition, he is one of only two shooters to win the “big five” (singles, doubles, handicap, high all around, and high overall) at the CTA Championship since its inception in 1956. He was the CTA high overall champion five times (1981, 1983, 1984, 1986 & 1991) and claimed the CTA high all-around championship seven times (1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1990 & 1991).
In Saskatchewan Amateur Trap Association competition, Boll won 47 different championships and was an 11-time high overall champion and seven-time high all-around champion. He was a member of the Saskatchewan All-Star Team for a record 37 years.
He also competed at three Western Canada Summer Games, winning a gold medal with the Saskatchewan team in 1979, a silver in 1983 and earning a bronze medal in 1990 where he captained the team.
Boll passed away on January 28, 2021.
Installed in the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame on September 24, 2022.
