The first gold medal of Rio goes to American sharpshooter Virginia Thrasher

Virginia Thrasher wins gold
(Image credit: Pascal Guyot/Getty Images)

An American teenager named Virginia Thrasher took home the first gold medal of the Rio Olympics Saturday morning for her win in the women's 10-meter air rifle event.

The 19-year-old student of West Virginia University is at her first Olympic Games, and she triumphed over two Chinese athletes, silver medalist Du Li and bronze medalist Yi Siling, who took gold in 2004 and 2012 respectively.

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Thrasher's gold is the third time an American woman has won this event and the first time since 2000.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.