The United States brought home the first gold medal of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Virginia “Ginny” Thrasher, 19, of Springfield, Virginia, won the gold medal in the women’s ten-meter air rifle event, her first medal in her first Olympic appearance.

The air rifle shoot takes place at ten meters, or 10.94 yards. Shooters stand to shoot their .177-caliber rifles, which can weigh as much as 12.13 lbs., and fire 20 shots for a possible score of 218. Thrasher won this year’s event with a record-setting score of 208, beating second place Du Li, a two-time gold medalist from China, by one point.

By all accounts, Thrasher shouldn’t have won the event . . . or even appeared at the Olympics. Three years ago she was only 45th in the U.S. junior air rifle rankings. She wasn’t expected to break the top five in the NCAA this year, much less win. And she certainly wasn’t expected to qualify for the Olympics.

Thrasher became the first freshman to both win first place in the NCAA and lead the West Virginia Mountaineers to a team championship, then she won the U.S. Olympic Trials to qualify for the Games—all within a three-week time span.

Her success didn’t stop when she hit the world stage at Rio, either. This year’s games saw a new elimination final that kicked off the air rifle event, which Thrasher won with a perfect 10.9 score. She held on as numerous eliminations took place, regularly scoring 10s despite someone in the audience attempting to distract the shooters by blowing an air horn throughout the event. Thrasher was part of the eight-woman final shoot, leading the field by 0.7 points over her rivals.

Right behind her was China’s Du Li, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who matched Thrasher point for point for much of the final round. In fact, it was Li’s final shot, a comparatively low score of 10.1, that enabled Thrasher to win by one point. Li followed in second, with fellow Chinese shooter Yi Siling winning bronze.

“This is beyond my wildest dreams,” Thrasher said. “I knew it was a realistic expectation for me to get into the finals and once you get into the finals, anything can happen. For me, this year has been incredible.”

Thrasher was born in Rome, New York, and currently lives in Virginia. She is a rising sophomore at West Virginia University, where she majors in engineering.

The irony of it all? Thrasher’s dream was to become a figure skater. Only after her freshman year of high school did she realize that, in her words, “she was never any good” at it and decided to abandon the idea. A 2011 hunting trip with her grandfather caused her to switch to the shooting sports, leading to this momentous occasion for her and her country in the 2016 Games.

It’s hard to find a better illustration of the importance of taking a child hunting.