Ginny Thrasher won the very first Gold Medal of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil. And now she has her sights set on another strong performance in the next Olympics, slated for Japan in 2021. Ginny Thrasher’s marksmanship success story started a decade ago at the age of 14 when she went on a hunting trip with her grandfather. From there she rose to stardom in collegiate shooting and then the Olympics.

In 2016 when Ginny earned Gold in Rio for Team USA she was the youngest American female to ever win a shooting Gold Medal. In first Olympic showing, she led the Women’s 10-meter air rifle and set a new Olympic record with a finals score of 208.0!

“There are so many feelings associated with 2016 for me … I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the year that all athletes dream of”, the now 23-year-old said. “Going to the Olympics was one of the most amazing and singular once-in-a-lifetime experiences that not everyone gets … It was amazing,”

Returning to the United States after the Olympics in 2016 presented a swirling new world for Ginny. As a collegiate athlete on the West Virginia University (WVU) rifle team, she suddenly found herself the most famous person on campus — often stopped while walking to class or shopping for groceries, being asked for a picture or an autograph.

The overwhelming response of the country, from strangers to national media, turned attention to the sport of rifle shooting. That gave Ginny a sense of pride in the impact she had made for the entire marksmanship community: “That’s something that athletes in other sports experience all the time, but it’s not something rifle shooters typically experience,” she said. “I was very, very grateful to have the community support, and it was a lot of fun to go and be invited to different events and speak to different media outlets and truly represent my sport.”

She went on, “It was getting a lot of attention at a time when our sport is not very common, not a lot of people know what it is … So the more I could answer people’s questions to advocate and to educate, to me, that was a huge opportunity.”

With her medal carefully tucked away in a bank lockbox for safekeeping, Ginny has done her best to become accustomed to her new reality. As she went back to competing with her WVU teammates in 2016, she found herself sometimes distracted by the attention.

“It definitely took some adjusting – getting used to my normal rifle matches where they might be calling athletes to the line and you have 10 young girls who want to take a photo with you and get your autograph,” she said. “I’m proud that I can try to be a role model and that people look up to me, but at the same time, it’s hard to compete when you’re being pulled in different directions by different people.”

“I’m a lot better at that now then that I used to be,” she added. “There’s kind of a learning curve.”

Luckily, public response didn’t stop her from staying committed to her own rifle performances while also supporting the performances of her WVU team. She says the best parts about being a part of a NCAA rifle team are the resources, educational opportunities, and the chance to create lasting connections.

“At West Virginia, we talked a lot about legacy, and as the rifle team with historically the most track record of NCAA championships … it was about leaving the team, leaving the university better than you found it,” she said. “It felt like it had a greater purpose … you meet friends and teammates you’re going to have for life.”

Her senior year at WVU was even more special for her and her teammates as the school hosted the 2019 NCAA Championships for the first time in collegiate history. Rifle fans within the Coliseum, WVU’s basketball arena, even broke the attendance record.

After graduation in May 2019, she didn’t wait to keep her rifle career moving forward. She immediately moved to Colorado Springs to train at the Olympic Training Center, where she has worked as a full-time professional athlete ever since. She plans to stay in Colorado Springs for the next four years, hoping to become a repeat Olympic athlete.

“I’m really having a fun time exploring a new location, living in a new place, being able to spend more hours training, doing what I love, taking a bigger role in the national team. That’s been great,” she said. “I’m really enjoying it.”

At the Olympic Training Center, Ginny has had the opportunity to reconnect with National Rifle coach Dan Durben, former director and chief instructor of the Civilian Marksmanship Program’s (CMP) Summer Air Rifle Camps, where he stayed for over a decade. A 1988 Olympian himself, Durben has had past success as a trainer, serving as the National Rifle Team coach 1997 to 2000 and the Paralympic Shooting Team from 2003 to 2008 – leading multiple teams to the Olympics.

As a junior, Ginny attended both the three-position and standing CMP Camps, under Durben, and was excited to train under him again at the Olympic Training Center: “The creator extraordinaire, I guess you could call him … the Megamind behind the Summer Camps was Dan Durbin, who is now my National coach, who I see and talk to every single day,” she said. “It’s really cool to me that I can kind of see the connections with some of the things.”

She went on, “You know you’re really getting high-level information and coaching at those camps – we can prove that because Dan is now a very successful National coach, and not for the first time either. So that’s such a great opportunity.”

Ginny also discussed the experiences the CMP Camps create for NCAA athletes, who gain coaching skills as counselors: “I honestly cannot speak highly enough of that program,” she said. “I think it’s really important because you’re growing that generation of athletes to want to shoot in college, and then you’re taking the generation of college athletes and teaching them how to coach better … a lot of them go on to be collegiate coaches, a lot of them just go on to coach their local high school or their local junior club. And that is so important too, so I think there’s really good longevity in the CMP Camps system.”

Ginny admits she has matured immensely as an athlete since she was young, learning from so many challenges and experiences both on and off the firing line.

“I feel like going into 2016, I was kind of this wide-eyed little 19-year-old, going in as the underdog,” she said. “After hopefully going into the 2021 Olympics, if I qualify, I can go in more as a professional athlete with more of an adult relationship with my sport … knowing more about what I’m getting into, being able to handle it, embracing the fact that there are challenges and that your career, just like everything in life, is a roller coaster. There’s good times and bad times, and they feed off of each other, and they make each one more special.”

“Trying to be a better teammate, trying to meet more selfless, trying to worry more about the sport and the mechanics of it. Even my understanding of how each position works is so much better now than it was 2016,” she added.

Trials for the postponed 2020 Olympics were completed for air rifle before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Unfortunately, Ginny found herself without a spot on the team. But, with one smallbore trial down and one to go, Ginny is leading overall and has the potential to again represent the United States. The final trial has not been set but will hopefully take place at the beginning of 2021.

Whenever it happens, Ginny will be ready.

“We’re in a good place and we’re just staying focused on doing everything possible that we can,” Ginny said. “The goal is to be able to say to ourselves, ‘You did everything. You did everything so now you can go compete with confidence.’ If I can do that, I’m confident the outcome will take care of itself.”

Outside of training, Ginny has been hard at work promoting her brand – launching her own website (GinnyThrasher.com) in August. There, followers can keep track of Ginny as well as purchase autographs and other merchandise. She has also invented her own kneeling roll, a project she developed while in college. Ginny’s kneeling roll is currently in production with MEC of Germany and will be available for purchase around the world.

Seven United States rifle competitors, including Olympic gold medalist Ginny Thrasher, will compete for Team USA at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. The XVIII Pan American Games will be contested July 26 – August 11 and will feature over 6,500 athletes from 41 nations.

Athletes were determined based on results of the 2019 Spring Selection Match held March 25-30 in Fort Benning, Georgia. In search of three Olympic quotas, Team USA will include the reigning Olympic champion Thrasher, now competing in Three-Position (3P) smallbore (not Air Rifle where she won Gold). She’ll be joined by her 2016 Olympic teammates Michael McPhail, and Lucas Kozeniesky. The full list of all Pan-American Games USA Rifle competitors is at the end of this story.

In men’s Three-Position Smallbore, two-time Olympian McPhail is slotted to compete alongside his U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) teammate Tim Sherry. Sherry will also compete in Air Rifle and in the Mixed Team Air Rifle competition with Weisz.

This will be the first Pan American Games for Thrasher, who recently graduated from West Virginia University. While at WVU, Thrasher won the 2016 NCAA smallbore and air rifle titles and helped lead the Mountaineers to two NCAA National Championships, while earning 12 All-America awards.

SFC Michael McPhail has switched from prone smallbore rifle to three-position smallbore.

Gunning for a third Olympic opportunity, McPhail had to re-invent himself after his discipline (Prone Rifle) was eliminated from the Olympic program after 2016. The USAMU soldier now shoots Three-Position Smallbore Rifle very well indeed — McPhail won the Spring Selection Match and earned a bronze medal at the 2018 World Championships.

2019 U.S. Pan American Games Rifle Team

Women’s Air Rifle
Mindy Miles (Weatherford, Texas)
Ali Weisz (Belgrade, Montana)

Women’s Three-Position Rifle
Sarah Beard (USAMU/Danville, Indiana)
Ginny Thrasher (Springfield, Virginia)

Men’s Air Rifle
Tim Sherry (USAMU/Highlands Ranch, Colorado)
Lucas Kozeniesky (Fairfax, Virginia)

Men’s Three-Position Rifle
Michael McPhail (USAMU/Darlington, Wisconsin)
Tim Sherry (USAMU/Colorado Springs, Colorado)

Mixed Team Air Rifle
Ali Weisz / Tim Sherry
Mindy Miles / Lucas Kozeniesky

More than 200 shooters from around the country will make their annual pilgrimage to the home of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit this weekend as the week-long USA Shooting National Championships for Rifle and Pistol kick off Sunday in Fort Benning, Georgia. The National Championships start Sunday, June 10 and run through June 16. This event is free and open to the public.

Click HERE for USA Shooting National Championships Schedule of Events PDF »

This year’s National Championship will also be the first Nationals where the new ISSF shooting format will be in place, with men and women taking the same number of record shots in competition.

National titles and slots on the National/National Junior/National Paralympic Teams will be up for grabs as athletes compete in individual Olympic and Paralympic events in Rifle and Pistol disciplines, as well as Men’s and Women’s 50m Prone Rifle, Men’s 25m Center Fire and Standard Pistol and Men’s 50m Free Pistol. This match will also serve as the selection match for the 2018 International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championships to be held August 31 – September 15 in Changwon, South Korea. Shooters who’ve already earned slots on the World Championship Team will be looking to Nationals as as a tune-up prior for the Worlds.

Among the notable Rifle athletes who will be competing in Fort Benning are three-time Olympic medalist Matt Emmons, 2016 Olympic gold medalist Ginny Thrasher, and two-time Olympian Michael McPhail of the USAMU. Emmons and Thrasher posted the top finishes for American Rifle athletes this year on the ISSF circuit. Emmons just missed the podium at the April 2018 World Cup in Changwon, finishing fourth in Men’s Three-Position Rifle. Thrasher finished fifth in Women’s Air Rifle at the World Cup in Fort Benning just three weeks ago.

Paralympic Competition Draws Shooters from Many Nations

In addition to the National Championships, this event is also a World Shooting Para Sport-sanctioned (WSPS, formerly IPC) match so Paralympic athletes from the U.S., Ireland, Canada, Ukraine and Columbia will also compete in this match across the Paralympic Rifle and Pistol events.

Archive photos courtesy NRA Competitive Shooting.

Ten USA Shooting athletes compete this week at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Final in New Delhi, India. Some 160 shooters from 15 countries will compete in this year’s invitation-only World Cup Final which runs October 22-30, 2017. Most of the Team USA squad in India are shotgunners. This year our Skeet/Trap shooters, including six-time Olympic Medalist Kim Rhode (above left), have garnered 26 top-10 finishes plus 12 individual medals and eight team medals.

The new Olympic events of Air Rifle Mixed Team, Air Pistol Mixed Team, and Trap Mixed Team kick off this ISSF World Cup Final in India. The USA has two pairs in the Trap Mixed Team event: Kayle Browning/Jake Wallace and World Championship bronze medalists Ashley Carroll/Derek Haldeman.

Browning and Wallace won a team silver at the World Cup in Acapulco, Mexico. Ashley Carroll (Solvang, California) and Derek Haldeman (USAMU, Sunbury, Ohio) won team bronze at the World Championship in Moscow, Russia. Interestingly, Ashley and Derek have a life together away from the trap range — they have been dating for two years now.

“The way the team event goes, it’s still a pretty individual game,” said Haldeman, who will make his World Cup Final debut in New Delhi. Haldeman, a Double Trap specialist, converted to Trap this season upon Double Trap’s elimination from the Olympic program. “It’s hard to help each other out during the actual competition. Ashley came down to Fort Benning to work on stuff. We worked on how we can work together, what we can say and what we can’t say, and that’s kind of how we were getting ready for World Cup Final. We’ll shoot together, have fun with it and see what happens!”

Ashley will compete again later in the week as the lone U.S. competitor in Women’s Trap. Carroll had a breakout year in 2017, winning her third National Championship win in a row, along with a gold-medal win and world-record finish at World Cup Acapulco.

Thrasher is Sole American Rifle Shooter at ISSF World Cup Final
2016 Olympic gold medalist Ginny Thrasher (Springfield, Virginia) is the sole USA Rifle competitor at the 2017 ISSF World Cup Final. Thrasher, who earned her berth by virtue of winning Olympic Gold in Rio, took Bronze at the 2016 World Cup Final in Bologna, Italy.

ISSF World Cup Final
Competition commenced Sunday and concludes on October 30. The ISSF World Cup Final runs each year at the conclusion of the World Cup season. Athletes earn points through finishes throughout the season, with the eight best athletes in each event earning invitations to this match. Wild card invitations are also granted to title defenders, and in years of the Olympic Games and World Championships, to the three medalists in each event.

Finals will be streamed live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel, on its official Facebook page and on the Olympic Channel.

ISSF World Cup Finals Schedule (All times USA Eastern Time)

Tuesday, October 24th: Trap Mixed Team at 4:30 am
Wednesday, October 25th: Skeet Women at 5:30 am
Thursday, October 26th: 10m Air Rifle Women at 2:30 am; Skeet Men at 5:30 am
Saturday, October 28th: Trap Women at 5:00 am
Sunday, October 29th: 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men at 12:45 am

While the majority of competitive shooters are male, some of the very best shooters are female. Competitive shooting is one sport where men and women do compete head-to-head at the highest level. You won’t see that in tennis, or cycling, or basketball, but in shooting, it’s not unusual to see a talented lady on top of the podium. There still are gender-based classifications in some shooting disciplines, but in F-Class, NRA High Power, and Benchrest women can and do compete on a par with men. These talented ladies have proven themselves capable of winning National and International Championships against all comers.

To celebrate the skills and talent of lady shooters, Shooting Sports USA recently created a great article showcasing 50 of the most talented female shooters in the USA. This list includes Olympic gold medalists (in shotgun and air rifle), Pistol champions, Palma rifle shooters, PRS competitors, and 3-gun specialists. Here are some of the 50 notables from the list. CLICK HERE to see the whole list.

Nancy, Sherri, and Michelle — The Tompkins/Gallager Clan

There are three more ladies, champions all, who should be included in the Top 50 list. We would definitely add Nancy Tompkins, and daughters Sherri Gallagher and Michelle Gallagher to this list. Nancy and Sherri are the only two women in history to have won the National High Power championship. Michelle Gallagher has won the Long Range National championship and she also serves as the coach of the U.S.A. F-Open team at the 2017 F-Class World Championships. Nancy Tompkins has rightly been called the “First Lady of American Shooting” and rightly so. You won’t find a nicer person, or a more talented shooter. Sherri, currently with the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute Team, was an ace shooter with the USAMU squad who earned U.S. Army’s Soldier of the Year honors in 2010.

The Rio Olympics shooting competition has ended, and USA Shooting Team’s medalists are all women. Ginny Thrasher of Virginia got the USA medal count off to a great start by winning the first gold medal of the 2016 Olympic games in Women’s Air Rifle, and Corey Cogdell-Unrein repeated as bronze medalist in Women’s Trap. By winning a bronze medal in skeet last Friday, 37-year-old Kim Rhode became the first female and summer Olympian ever to win medals in six consecutive Olympic Games. Read coverage in the LA Times, USA Today and Associated Press. Kim Rhode’s Olympic Odyssey.

Shooting Sports USA profiled Ginny Thrasher, winner of the very first Gold Medal awarded at the Rio Olympic games:

For 36 hours, Thrasher was the face of Team USA as the lone gold medalist, winning the first medal of the 2016 Olympic Games. The 19-year-old WVU sophomore was propelled into the media spotlight…

Thrasher explained how she coped with the pressures of competing in the most important sporting event on earth:

“I think this competition is one where you can mentally out-think yourself, and that’s the danger. For me, just being very focused. During the match I started out with some struggles, and I had to come off the line and my Olympic coach down there said, ‘Ginny, all you can do is shoot the best you can.’ I got back on the line, and that’s what I did. I shot the best that I could. I had a very bad hold, but it didn’t matter. Once I got into the final, I was very much focused on my breathing, and that was the point where all the training and all the discipline just came through for me. All I did was focus on my breathing and let my body do what it knew how to do.”

The 2016 Rio Olympic Games kick off today with the Opening Ceremony. Shooting sports will be a part of these Olympics with competitions for rifle, pistol, and shotgun. From August 6 though August 14, Olympic shooters will compete in Brazil’s ultra-modern Olympic Shooting Center, originally created for the 2007 Pan-American Games at a cost of $53.5 million.

CLICK HERE for USA Shooting Olympic Preview with Team Profiles

SFC Michael McPhail, shown above, is currently ranked #1 in the world in the smallbore 50m prone rifle discipline. He’s one of the favorites to win Gold in 2016.

2016 Olympic Media Coverage — TV and Internet
There will be some broadcast television coverage of shooting events. But the best way to follow the shooting matches is through streaming on the internet. NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App will live stream 4,500 total hours of Olympics coverage — covering every event. Each day you can click the NBC Live Stream Schedule for Shooting Sports Events to see what’s running. CLICK HERE for complete shooting sports schedule.

With Rio just one hour ahead of the Eastern Time zone, Americans will enjoy great “real-time” coverage of the 2016 Summer Games. NBCUniversal will present 2,084 hours of Olympic programming across 11 affiliated TV and Cable networks.

Olympic Shooting Event Schedule

You’ll find more information on Team USA and Olympic Shooting Competition on these websites:

Virginia “Ginny” Thrasher, who will compete in the Rio Olympics this summer, showed continued dominance of her sport by winning the women’s national Air Rifle title last week at Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the USAMU. Mindy has been on fire in recent months. In April she won the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Smallbore Rifle, securing a spot at the Rio Olympics. Prior to that, Ginny won individual NCAA titles in both air rifle and smallbore — as a freshman! This girl is a genuine phenom…

Thrasher, a member of the West Virginia University Mountaineers, has been on a tear of late. After winning the the Olympic Trials in Three-Position Rifle in April, she then earned two finals appearances at the Munich World Cup in May. Prior to that, Ginny’s sharpshooting earned her individual NCAA titles in air rifle and smallbore. With those performances, the talented freshman led West Virginia University to the collegiate team title and was named Top Performer of the 2016 NCAA Shooting Championship.

Her WVU coach, Jon Hammond, said Ginny has had an amazing run to Rio: “It’s an unbelievable freshman year to win NCAA championships and qualify for the Olympics. I would hazard she’s probably going to be one of the youngest members of the U.S. shooting team at the Olympics.”

Thrasher earned her way onto the national team with a stellar performance at the 2015 U.S. championships, where she won five medals, three in junior competition and two in open competition. That performance propelled her into her freshman season at West Virginia University.

This year’s USA Shooting National Championships includes more than 300 athletes vying for National Team selections and the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Other shooters attending this year’s Nationals are looking ahead to the next Olympic Games — Tokyo 2020.

Mindy Miles (Weatherford, Texas) finished second at Nationals behind Thrasher in the women’s Air Rifle Event. Thrasher’s Team USA teammate at the Rio Olympics, Sarah Scherer (Woburn, Massachusetts), won the Final to finish third overall.