The first gold medal of the Rio Olympic Games was up for grabs this morning in the women’s 10-meter air rifle competition, and it was Rome-born Virginia “Ginny” Thrasher who made that win.
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Thrasher, 19, finished the match with 208.0 points, one point more than 2004 Athens Games champion Du from China.
Thrasher pulled it off against two of the world’s best rifle shooters, Li and Yi Siling.
Recounting the story of how she took up the sport in the first place she recalled: “It was 8th grade, my grandfather took me hunting, I got my first deer, I really liked the adrenalin”.
Competing in her first Olympics, Thrasher, as the first champion of the 2016 Games, was awarded her medal by International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach and said the achievement was beyond her wildest dreams. She began hitting the range the same month as the London Olympics.
China’s Yi Siling took the bronze with a score of 185.4. A soon-to-be sophomore engineering major at West Virginia, Thrasher was competing in her first worldwide shooting competition. “The first gold medal for Rio 2016, for U.S. at 19 years old is incredible”. I’m just very proud to be able to start off the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in such a positive manner for my country. Greg Van Avermaet of Belgium won the grueling road race that left cyclists tending to scrapes, bruises and road rash. He then recovers to tally a 10.7 on the last shot of the day to clinch the win, making him the first-ever Olympic gold medalist for Vietnam. She was among the biggest US stars of the opening day of the Summer Games.
Kosuke Hagino won Japan’s first gold medal by beating American Chase Kalisz and countryman Daiya Seto in the men’s 400m individual medley. In the knockout phase, Yi was forced out with just three athletes remaining, and the 27-year-old settled for bronze. The event consisted of two rounds: a qualifier and a final.
Maya Dirado of the United States was second in 4:31.15 and Spain’s Mireia Belmonte third in 4:32.39.
MEDAL ALERT-WORLD RECORD: Australia sets a world record to capture the gold medal in the women’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay at the Rio Olympics.
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Elsewhere, Sopita Tanasan of Thailand won the gold medal of the women’s 48kg contention with a total of 200kg.
