West Virginia's Ginny Thrasher Brings Home The First Gold Medal Of The 2016 Summer Olympics

At age 19, Ginny Thrasher has accomplished some pretty incredible things.

In March, she lead the West Virginia University rifle team to their 18th National Championship. The Mountaineers won the title handedly, but Thrasher stole the spotlight, sweeping the individual titles with wins in smallbore and air rifle to become only the second Mountaineer in the program's history to earn both championships in one season. In April, Ginny finished first in smallbore in the US Olympic Team Trials and secured her spot on the United States' roster in Rio.

This morning, Thrasher added to her list of accomplishments by finishing atop the leaderboard in the Women's 10-meter air rifle event with a score of 208.0, bringing the first gold medal of the 2016 Summer Olympics home to the United States and, more importantly, West Virginia University. Coming into the event, Thrasher was not the favorite to win. Chinas's Du Li, the silver medalist in the event, won the gold in the 2004 Athens Olympics and Serbia's Andrea Arsovic, who failed to qualify for the event, came into this week ranked No. 1 in the world.

Not bad for someone who didn't start shooting until just a few years ago, following a hunting trip with her grandfather. Ginny will compete again on Thursday, August 11th in the Women's 50-meter rifle event.