Yi Siling, also of China and the defending Olympic champion, finished third with a 185.4 mark.
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Durant picked up right where he left off in the 2012 Olympics with 25 points, and the USA men’s basketball team routed China 119-62 on Saturday night in its opening game.
United States breaststroker Lilly King on Sunday aimed her comments and finger wag at Russia’s Yulia Efimova, the world champion who was approved to compete at the Rio Olympics only Saturday after a previous ban for doping.
About halfway through the finals, Thrasher was certain that she “was in contention for a medal”, the Associated Press reported (via Business Insider). On August 11 she will have as chance at further glory when competing in the women’s three-position rifle event.
Whatever excitement and exuberance she felt that day clearly has been replaced by a calm and assured manner that seemed more coached than possible for a 19-year-old on the most important day of her athletic career.
Thrasher stood her ground against the two Chinese shooters in the medal eliminations, hitting nothing lower than 10.4. Less than a month later, she won at the U.S. Olympic trials, which helped her earn a spot at the Rio Olympic Games. “Some of the (controversy surrounding) gun laws in America is just distracting from our sport, which is very different”, she said.
“When I was in eighth grade, my grandpa took me out deer hunting”, Thrasher said, “and then the next year I joined my high school’s air rifle team”.
Thrasher’s prowess with a gun didn’t begin until that fateful hunting trip.
She later joined the air rifle team at her Virginia high school – her daily routine: figure skating lessons in the morning, then classes and shooting practice after school – before enrolling a year ago at West Virginia, a shooting powerhouse that has won the past four NCAA championships. She qualified for Saturday’s final in sixth place, but took the lead in the decider with her first shot, the only 10.9 score on the day.
Anthony finished with nine points and made by history becoming the first US male to play basketball in four Olympics.
DeMarcus Cousins added 17 points and Paul George 15 for the US, which is a heavy favorite to win a third straight gold and won’t change any opinions after this performance. “For me, holding that medal in my hands and looking at it and realizing it’s still real is something I have to do every few minutes”.
Virginia Thrasher has a gold medal, but it won’t get her a pass with her physics professor.
“This is beyond my wildest dreams”, Thrasher said.
Thrasher did win the NCAA championships as a student at West Virginia University, but this is her first time at the Olympics.
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And due to the new scoring system introduced in Rio she can also lay claim to setting a new Olympic record. Rhode is an outspoken member of the National Rifle Association and previously spoke on the matter at the 2012 Republican National Convention.
