American shooter brings home first gold

Thrasher claimed gold just 11 hours after Brazilian marathon runner Vanderlei Cordeiro lit the Olympic cauldron at the climax of Friday’s spectacular opening ceremony.

“After I shoot that match, I’ll be going back, straight to classes for my sophomore year”, the Springfield, Virginia, native, who attends West Virginia University, said.

“What’s most attractive of rifle is the mental side of the sport”, Thrasher told DKPittsburghSports.

“I was honestly just very happy to be here, but incredibly proud to win the first gold medal of the Rio games”, Thrasher said. IOC President Thomas Bach hung the medal around her neck.

“In the finals, about halfway through, it kind of became clear to me that I was in contention for a medal”, Thrasher said. Both were members of the “Fierce Five” gold-medal winning team from the 2012 London Games.

Meanwhile, Pakistan shooter Minhal Sohail on Saturday failed to qualify for the main round of 10 metre Rifle Shooting event during the ongoing Rio Olympics.

The first event to finish would be the women’s 10-meter air rifle. Du finished with 207.0. After the breathtaking moment, the young athlete pulled it off against two of the world’s best shooters: Du Li and Siling Yi.

“This is beyond my wildest dreams”, she added. “I knew it was a realistic expectation for me to get into the finals and once you get into the finals, anything can happen”. Du had also won the 50-metre 3 positions rifle event at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, while Yi has been the world number one in the 10-metre air rifle for the past four years.

Yi took a similar path as Thrasher’s, earning air rifle gold at the 2012 London Games just three years after starting her global shooting career.

Before she secured a spot on Team USA for the Olympic trials, the engineering major student helped the WVU Mountaineers win their fourth consecutive NCAA team championship. Greatest of All Time-in-the-making Simone Biles will lead the way on a team that includes Fierce Five alums Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas – the first US gymnasts to make back-to-back Olympics since 2000 – and rookies Laurie Hernandez and Madison Kocian.

Durant made three 3-pointers in the first half as the USA opened a 29-point halftime lead and coasted.

—GOING FOR GOLD: The marquee event Saturday is the men’s basketball game between the Americans and China — although some say the real action is more than 6,000 miles away in Las Vegas, where betting on the Olympics is legal for the first time since 1998. U.S. Keeper Hope Solo played in her 200th worldwide game, which is a first for a keeper on the global level.

Hungary’s gold medal victor Katinka Hosszu is flanked. Despite the milestone, Solo was still peppered with jeers from the crowd, which was riled up about social media posts she made about the threat of the Zika virus.

The United States went on to defeat No. 2 Argentina 2-1 in its opening match. Ana Paula Rodrigues led the way with 12 goals for Brazil, which has never won an Olympic handball medal.

Men’s 200M Freestyle FinalConor Dwyer won his first individual Olympic medal, taking home the bronze with a time of 1:45.23.

The men’s 400-meter individual medley is the marquee race in Saturday night’s swimming program even without two of the sport’s biggest stars. Especially at the Olympics. At one point, the National Rifle Association, which is the strongest and most powerful opponent of gun control in the U.S., managed the U.S. Olympic Shooting Team.