China’s Yang Qian won the first gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics in the women’s 10m air rifle competition on Saturday, Jul 24. The silver went to Russian shooter Anastasiia Galashina and the bronze medal went to Switzerland’s Nina Christen.
It has only been a few hours of the Day 1 at Tokyo Olympics, and China begs the first glory. China’s Yang Qian won the Gold Medal at the Women’s 10m Air Rifle event, kicking off the medal tally. It has become an Olympic tradition to award the first set of medals at this event. China had previously accomplished this feat at the 2012 London Olympics when Yi Siling reigned supreme. Yang qualified for the finals at 6th position with an impressive score of 628.7 after 60 shots earlier today. The qualification round saw Norway’s Duestad Jeanette Hegg lead the pack with 632.9 creating a Qualification Olympic Record (QOR). Galashina led the race for the gold in the final until she cracked under pressure and signed off with her lowest score of 8.9 for a total of 251.1. While this is the first gold medal of the Tokyo Games, there are other notable first medals coming up. The first medals ever will be awarded over the next two weeks in skateboarding, karate, surfboarding and sport climbing, four sports that are making their Olympic debut this year.
