“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. Thrasher, 19, beat silver medalist Du Li of China in the final round with a total of 208.0, setting an Olympic record in the finals. Du finished with 207.0.” The NCAA champ wasn’t among the favorites for a medal. It’s the first women’s gold in air rifle since 2000 and the third ever. We’re sure our friends at Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action will lift a glass with us to toast America’s new golden girl.
This is fantastic! First gold of the games.
Indeed!
Congrats, Ginny!
Now, be sure to sock away some cash to pay the IRS. US Gold medalists get $25,000 *cash* along with the medal. some teams do considerably better, like Malasia:
” Malaysia promises its medalists a solid gold bar worth $600,000. Members of the Italian Olympic Team can receive $189,800 for a gold medal; Russians receive $189,800.
Bad news for U.S. medal winners
There’s some bad news that goes along with that payout, though.
Any money paid to a U.S. athlete for a medal win is classified as “earned income abroad ” and considered taxable income by the IRS. For athletes with the highest-earnings – a rare few – that tax bill could equal $9,900 per gold medal, $5,940 per silver medal, and $3,960 per bronze medal.”
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/08/olympic_games_rio_2016_did_you.html
25 thou might buy a brick of .22lr…
If it was a more peaceful place than Brazil, you could live there for 330 days and take the exclusion from income…
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/foreign-earned-income-exclusion
Most of Brazil, the rural areas, are plenty peaceful.
Rio is a crime-infested cesspool, just like most cities of similar size in the U.S.
Feel sorry for the Chicoms “favorites” that loose. Not happy place.
+1. One part that is neat about this story is that she caught the shooting bug hunting with her Grandpa.
She first picked up a gun 5 years ago hunting with her grandfather at age 14. Her first shot, dropped a whitetail deer.
Video of the win:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/ginny-thrasher-us-wins-first-gold-medal-rio-olympics
The irony of this is… LOL
way to go!
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/c1/c1a9d63ea0a3737842b5b9c51ce359d12df093204fb8ee76e707eecc6eec9fbe.jpg
‘kuz I can’t embed the image, but I wish I could. 😀
Right on. The first gold of the Olympics, and it goes to an American with a gun. ‘Murica!!!
USA! USA! USA!
That’s what I love about shooting. Put the hole in the target, get your score. None of this interpretation like gymnastics, boxing or figure skating where a judge can screw you out of a medal. Great job, Miss Thrasher!
Congrats to her. You guys also forgot to mention that the now gang will be just as pleased. GO USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TTAG, since Nick shot NCAA rifle, can you ask him to write up a quick description of the rifle she was using in this pic?:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/08/06/virginia-native-ginny-thrasher-19-shoots-her-way-to-first-u-s-gold-medal-in-rio/
And see if you can hunt her down on Twitter for an interview?
PSA
Support the team which runs with donations only
http://www.usashooting.org/
Donate a few bucks or buy a T-Shirt to celebrate the Gold
The link on Drudge about Ms. Thrasher was for a Yahoo Sports piece, and they managed to shoehorn their gun-grabbing agenda at the very end.
Then there were the comments; quite a few support banning firearm (and air-rifle) from the Olympics, because guns. Nevermind that their precious Olympics wouldn’t be what they are today, because Nazis.
Worse than that their top story now is about gun control and how it plays into this win.
Disgusting.
In contrast…http://www.abc2news.com/newsy/first-usa-olympic-gold-medal-renews-attention-to-gun-rights
I couldn’t help noticing that the last paragraph did not match the video. Mr Daniels said “gun control” in the video. The paragraph stated “gun safety.” Figures.
Well “air rifle” IS 90% about (or result) of gun control. If not the NCAA/Olympics would be firing full cal big boy handguns and rifle. Air rifle is just incrementalism for the tyrants and a sop for their subjects.
And they are no more “guns” than is a phaser, blaster, or slingshot.
I’d bet that young lass, with some transition training, could do as well with a Barrett in .338 Lapua rather than a basement gimcrack.
I saw her rifle. It is so tricked-out that it almost doesn’t even look like a “real” rifle. When do you say the marksman no longer matters?
I’d say you don’t know what your talking about.
Well look at it’s moniker…LOL. USA USA USA!
It looks tricked out because the stock is comprised of many adjustment pieces to make the stock fit the shooter perfectly.
The stock could look simpler, but then the competitor would end up paying more for stock fitting, and that’s before we get into the custom butthooks, etc.
As it is, the Anschuetz, Feinwerkbau (which is what I think Ginny’s air rifle is), Walthers and others have come up with the idea of making the butt and the butthook comprised out of many aluminum segments, all of which you can adjust.
Now, as to the idea that the marksman no longer matters:
The 10m air rifle event consists of trying to put a 4.5mm (0.177″) diameter pellet onto a 10-ring that is 0.5mm in diameter. That’s a little dot about 0.019″ in diameter – at 33 feet.
If you think it’s easy – well, pony up $3K for a competitive air rifle and show us how it’s done.
“Ginny Thrasher won . . . the women’s 10-meter air rifle event.”
I wanted one of those when I was twelve. I mean I wanted an air rifle, although the girl would have been nice too.
Dad bought me a Nylon 66 instead. I mean instead of the air rifle, not instead of the girl. I wasn’t disappointed. I got the girl all on my own. Just not this girl.
I just recently bought an air rifle for small game hunting. I hope I don’t shoot my eye out.
My 4th cousin with my (very) rare name was a national Collegiate air rifle champ…
Will she now be sponsored by Everytown and MDA??? DMD
Hey folks. Be sure to use this as an opportunity to let the young ladies you know about to go off to college, Rifle Teams are often looking for female participants with scholarship money. It helps their numbers for meeting the requirements for equal opportunities for female athletes.
She picked up the shooting bug from her dad. Let’s hope she didn’t pick up the Zika bug from Rio.
Amen to that. Dad, get her out of that 4th world sheethole and back to the states ASAP.
My kids wanted to know why some many of the Olympic yapping heads were Brit. The overpaid US yammering libtard news hotties wouldn’t go to Zikaland?
Let’s Gooooo Mountaineers!!
And only doing it for 5 years. Nice
Excellent work. Congrats!
WHOOOO! That’s awesome! Such a cool story.
Nooo…guns are only made for killing. There’s no way they can enrich peoples lives.
Murica.
Where is KJW?
God bless the Mountaineers!
“It’s the first women’s gold in air rifle since 2000 and the third ever.”
No, I’m pretty sure there’s one per event every four years.
Congrats Ginny!
You know, this just HAS to piss off those on the left! What temerity? She won the first gold medal by shooting!!
The Chinese have no gun rights. Even air guns are illegal. They shouldn’t complete in shooting sports!