American shooter Ginny Thrasher won the first gold medal of the Rio Olympics, pulling off an upset in the women’s 10-meter air rifle event Saturday morning.
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Competing in her first Olympics, the 19-year-old posted an Olympic finals record score of 208.0 to overtake China’s Li Du at Rio’s Olympic Shooting Centre. The bronze also went to China, with the 2012 victor Yi Siling carding 185.4 points.
No, not only for having an awesome name, but also for becoming the United States’ first gold medalist at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. “But I quickly refocused back on the shooting”.
In 2016, Thrasher became the first freshman, with West Virginia, to win both NCAA rifle titles, and was named rookie of the year by the American rifle conference.
Thrasher will be competing in her second event, the 50m rifle three positions, on Thursday, August 11.
She didn’t flinch at the sport’s brightest spotlight – or an air horn. They knew she had talent when she was able to make her first shot ever and Thrasher made a decision to try and hone in on her skills.
“I didn’t really care much about the Olympics”, Thrasher told The Post last month, after she qualified for the US team.
Thrasher learned to love shooting while hunting deer with her grandfather when she was in eighth grade.
Her current issue centers around new gun control measures in California that, among other things, added background checks for ammunition.
Thrasher wasn’t one of the favorites to win a medal coming into the Olympics.
“It’s very special for me to start out in Rio 2016 for the United States”. Yi earned air rifle gold at the 2012 London Games just three years after starting her global shooting career.
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Thrasher ended up on top of the podium and her whirlwind will wind down soon; a biomedical engineering major, she starts classes again at West Virginia on August 17.
