Thrasher Answers Olympic Gold with Bronze at World Cup Final

Thrasher Answers Olympic Gold with Bronze at World Cup Final
Thrasher Answers Olympic Gold with Bronze at World Cup Final
USA Shooting
USA Shooting

USA-(Ammoland.com)- Anyone thinking that 19-year-old Ginny Thrasher would have a competitive lapse after a thrilling gold-medal victory at the Olympic Games, doesn’t really know her. A World Cup Final bronze medal is a pretty good answer.

There she was Saturday in Bologna, Italy, on an international stage for the first time since being crowned Olympic champion, and she wouldn’t disappoint. She qualified second with a score of 419.9, or 3.6 points higher than the qualification she had in Rio. Once in the Final, she would be tied with China’s Siling Yi after the sixth series in a battle for silver. Thrasher would have to settle for bronze after shooting a 9.7 and 9.5 in two of her last four shots. Yi would capture the silver while Andrea Arsovic walked away as the top globe trophy winner.

Still, the bronze medal against the world’s best is another significant achievement in a year full of them for Thrasher (Springfield, Virginia). This is the same person who just earned her first World Cup trip in 2015 and this is the first world Cup medal of her career.

Last week, Thrasher helped the No. 2-ranked WVU rifle team (1-0) open its 2016-17 season with a 4714-4674 win over No. 5 Ohio State on Oct. 2, in Morgantown. A three-time All-American, she swept the individual wins, shooting 595 air rifle and a career-high 594 smallbore. Included in her smallbore performance were program-record marks of 200 prone and 199 standing.

Read the recent feature on Thrasher currently running on www.teamusa.org

In other action Saturday, Will Brown (Twin Falls, Idaho) also got himself into the Air Pistol final after qualifying sixth with a score of 580/600. He would be the first eliminated in the Final, ending up eighth overall. Serbia’s Damir Mikec was the eventual winner with China’s Wei Pang and Turkey’s Ismail Keles earning silver and bronze.

The World Cup Final concludes Sunday with action in Men’s and Women’s Three-Position Rifle on tap. Three-time Olympic medalist Matt Emmons (Browns Mills, New Jersey) and Sarah Beard (Danville, Indiana) will try and add to the medal total for Team USA. Emmons already earned a bronze medal in Prone Rifle Thursday and joined winner Michael McPhail (U.S. Army Marksmanship/Darlington, Wisconsin). Women’s 3P starts at 2:30 am ET with Final at 8:30 am ET. Men’s 3P follows at 5:00 am ET with Final set for 10 am ET.