Young gun Thrasher comes from nowhere to claim first gold
Shock win ‘beyond wildest dreams’ for American Briton McIntosh in creditable 15th
When you are called Ginny Thrasher, it almost behoves you to pick up a gun. It is a name you would give a character in a John Ford film: the flame-haired, foulmouthed sharpshooter who could empty a saloon of bad guys in seconds, before blowing the smoke from her pistol and drawling: “Who’s next, boys?”
It is somewhat surprising, then, to discover that the first gold medallist of the 2016 Olympics was a beaming, unflappable teenager who has to get the first flight back after the Games so she can be in class. Thrasher is 19 years old, a biomedical engineering student at West Virginia University and, as well as claiming the first medal of these Olympics in the women’s 10metre air rifle, engineered the first real shock as well.
“This is beyond my wildest dreams,” she beamed. “For me to start out Rio 2016 with the first gold medal makes me very proud.” A measure of Thrasher’s rise is that when the silver medallist Du Li, of China, was winning her second Olympic gold medal in Beijing, Thrasher had never even fired a gun before. When the bronze medallist Yi Siling triumphed in London, Thrasher was trying out for her local high school shooting team. (And let us all take a moment to reflect on the fact that joining a high school shooting team is the sort of thing you can do in America.)
Coached by the former British Olympian Jon Hammond, Thrasher has virtually come from nowhere to sit at the pinnacle of her sport. In 2011 she went on a hunting trip with her father and grandfather, more out of curiosity than anything. With her very first shot, she took down a 150lb whitetail deer.
The bug had bitten. “I really liked the adrenalin of pulling the trigger,” she remembered. When it comes to the more sterile indoor environment of Olympic rifle shooting, however, adrenalin is often more of a hindrance than a help. There is a weird, unsettling quiescence to the sport, which is curious considering the violence involved.
Call me a bloodthirsty philistine, but if Hollywood has taught us anything, it is that shooting is at its most thrilling when it involves loud bangs and things smashing into a thousand pieces. Perhaps even a Hogan’s Alley parade in which competitors walk down a street shooting random, IOC-approved bad guys: cartoon criminals, evil dictators, ambush marketers, that sort of thing. But the rifles fire invisible pellets and the scoring is all done electronically, which sanitises the fun somewhat: like Laserquest without the aliens.
The margins are infinitesimal, almost atomic – Thrasher beat Du by one point, which means that on average she was more accurate by around 0.01mm per shot, or the width of a bacterium. And so it is a discipline that demands absolute control of movement, total poise and boundless reserves of deep calm.
All of which is hard enough to sustain under the best of circumstances, but in the frenetic, pop music-splattered ballroom of the Deodoro Shooting Centre, it seemed almost impossible. An ineradicable background hubbub was audible at all times, punctuated by foghorns and frequent PA announcements and large pockets of Russian and Chinese fans leaping to their feet to cheer good shots, even if other shooters were still lining up their attempts.
“I found it very difficult,” admitted Yi. “I heard cheers and horns. It was really disturbing.” Through it all, Thrasher was a model of concentration. The target in rifle shooting is divided into 10 rings, with the central area itself divided into 10 smaller rings, rising in value from 10.0 to the maximum 10.9. In the eight-person final, Thrasher hit the 10-ring with 18 consecutive shots.
It was a model of consistency that nobody else – not even the defending champion Yi – could match.
“I knew it was a realistic expectation to reach the final and I knew anything could happen if I made the final,” Thrasher said. “About halfway through when I took the lead, it became clear to me that I was in contention for a medal. So I just focused on breathing, and taking it one shot at a time.”
Defeat can be crushing. Germany’s Barbara Engleder was in silver medal position after 15 shots, but after her 16th shot, a 10.2, she dropped to fourth and was eliminated.
But there was a very creditable showing from Jen McIntosh, the only Briton in the field. It was all the more creditable when you consider that her rifle malfunctioned halfway through qualifying, forcing her father to scuttle out of the arena to find a replacement part.
“You’ve just got to manage these situations,” she said. “I’ve had rifle malfunctions in the past. Earlier this year my rifle got knocked off the table and broke in half, so that was fun. But even without factoring in the malfunction, it was a really good performance.”
Her 15th-place finish, the highest ever by a British woman in this event, put her just 1.2 points off a place in the final, and she will have gained plenty of confidence for her favoured event, the 50m three positions, on Thursday.
And so for many of the shooters, their Olympics was over on the first morning of the first day. It must be a strange experience after preparing and training for four years, given that the early start meant taking part in the opening ceremony was out of the question.
“It’s a bit of a surreal experience,” said McIntosh, who was safely tucked up in bed by 8.30 on Friday night.
“It was pretty empty in the village this morning. I was at breakfast by 6am. But at the end of the day, I’m here to compete.”
For Thrasher, there is also the 50m event to look forward to. But a week tomorrow, she will be flying back to West Virginia, with an 8.30am physics class to prepare for, and quite a story to tell her classmates.