MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Ginny Thrasher is saying good-bye to Rio and hello to Morgantown. Thrasher, 19, who gained fame as the first gold medal winner of the 2016 Olympic games returns to begin her sophomore year at West Virginia University next week.
“I’m very excited to get back,” said Thrasher on MetroNews “Talkline” Friday. “But classes start immediately so there’s no rest for the wicked!”
Thrasher is a Biomedical Engineering student at WVU, but indicated her career plans will be to shoot for as long as she can. She’s likely to become the standard bearer for women’s Olympic rifle with the retirement of her teammate Sarah Scherer.
“I might be a little bit of the face of USA Shooting for the next couple of years, but to have veterans like Sarah on the team to guide me through my first Olympics is incredible and I’m so thankful for their support,” Thrasher said.
Thrasher’s first shot of the air rifle finals was perfect, a 10.9. It set the pace for her gold medal performance.
“Shooting a 10.9 is an amazing feeling, but at the same time I knew I had 19 shots to go,” she said. “To me, focusing on my process and what I needed to do to get those outcomes was much more important than the actual shot I took.”
The low point of the Olympic experience had to be the 59th shot in the Three-Position smallbore event. It was her second to last shot and she scored an “8”, effectively eliminating her from the finals.
“It was disappointing to be one point out of the finals and not make it,” she said. “On that shot, I did over hold. The wind was gusting and you’d be holding for three to five minutes to wait for a five second window. But in the end, I think I did the best I could.”
Her success and the timing of her medal enabled many to learn more about competitive rife, something Thrasher also found extremely gratifying.
“We’re never going to be this huge spectator sport like some others,” she said. “But to have more people understand and appreciate our sport is a great thing. That’s one of the best parts about the Olympics.”
She’ll return to Morgantown a hero. There will me more obligations and commitments to fulfill before settling into the 2016-17 NCAA season with the Mountaineer Rifle Team and the fall semester of her second year of biomedical engineering.