USA’s gold medallist Virginia Thrasher (Photo: PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images)
The first gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro has gone to an American teenager.
Ginny Thrasher, a 19-year-old West Virginia University sophomore, won the women’s 10-meter air rifle event on Saturday morning at the Olympic Shooting Center in Deodoro, Brazil, edging out silver medalist Du Li of China. Thrasher, a Springfield, Virginia native, is the third-youngest USA women’s shooting medalist.
In March, Thrasher became the first freshman in NCAA history to sweep the individual titles with wins in smallbore and air rifle at the 2016 NCAA Championships, where WVU also claimed its fourth straight and 18th overall national championship.
Her score of 208 set a record for a final round in an Olympics. She was one point ahead of Du Li, who won a gold medal in 2004.
China’s Yi Siling took the bronze with a score of 185.4.
