The Connection

She’s not worried about hitting the bowl. Just striking the one-to-two-inch air rifle target from ten meters won’t win you a medal. It’s not even the middle ring, the size of a pencil eraser, that Springfield resident Ginny Thrasher is fixated on.

It’s the dot in the center of that. Ten points. “The size of a period on a piece of paper,” Thrasher said. “Times New Roman, size 12.”

Thrasher, a rising sophomore standout on the varsity rifle team at West Virginia University, has qualified to represent the United States in the Rio Olympic Games in two events: women’s air rifle and small bore.

She made the team after winning the small bore Olympic trials that were held the first week of April earlier this year at Fort Benning, Georgia. Thrasher was recognized in a board matter introduced jointly by Supervisors Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) and Kathy Smith (D-Sully) on April 26.

The previous month, Thrasher became the first freshman to capture the NCAA championship in both shooting events.

“It was the start of a crazy summer for me,” she said.

With the Olympic trials coming right after, she approached them confidently, but more as an opportunity to gain experience for the next summer games.

“My goal was just to shoot the best I could and see what would happen,” said Thrasher. “I was looking more towards 2020 as a realistic option. I thought, go to trials and experience the energy of trials.”

SINCE APRIL, Thrasher has been all over the world -- Brazil, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, among other countries -- for additional international competitions and training camps.

Though she admits she has some nerves going into the biggest competition of her life, while representing her country as the youngest member on the rifle team, she’s confident because of the focusing skills she’s developed through the sport.

“It’s about leaving all the distractions off the line, being 100 percent there,” Thrasher said. “That’s a necessary skill for life. Going to go shoot a big match -- there’s media, coaches, things you have to tune out.”

“It’s about finding where the mental state where you’re going to perform at your best,” she added

Before she picked up a rifle, Thrasher was lacing up figure skates. She competed through several moves, following her father Roger’s Air Force career. But she never advanced very rapidly.

At 13, Thrasher expressed interest in taking a hunter’s safety course, like her father and two older brothers had before her. Staying at what the family has considered a “home base” while moving between military assignments in Pennsylvania, Thrasher remembers a special experience going out hunting with her grandfather.

“Hunting is a great adrenaline rush,” she said. “For me, I didn’t like getting up at 4 a.m. and waiting in the cold. But I did enjoy the rush -- I just wanted to go try it out once.”

Thrasher’s mother Valerie remembers her own grandfather going hunting in the same woods, as well as uncles and cousins.

“There’s a bit of it in the blood,” she said.

When the family moved to Springfield and Thrasher was entering high school, she heard West Springfield offered a varsity rifle team. She didn’t hesitate in trying out.

Precision shooting she said is “completely different” from hunting, requiring a lot of practice and mastery.

“You have to control your breathing, that adrenaline,” Thrasher said.

“She immediately fell in love with it,” said Valerie.

IN HIGH SCHOOL, Thrasher continued to skate, for cross-training, balance and form, in the mornings before school. After school, she trained three-to-four days a week for several hours at the Arlington-Fairfax chapter of the Izaak Walton League facility in Centreville. Her coach was volunteer Oscar Starz.

As a mountaineer on scholarship, she practices with the team four hours a day after classes, five days a week, with matches on Saturdays during the season.

Though it was hunting that initially drew her to the sport, Thrasher maintains rifle competition is not about developing proficiency with a weapon.

“I’m shooting a firearm,” she said. “A weapon is based on how you use it. My sport teaches great safety, discipline, determination. That’s the message I want to get across. These things are going to help you long after you stop shooting.”

Though at this point, she has no intention of stopping any time soon. Period.

Thrasher competes in qualifying rounds on Aug. 6 and 11. Finals for both competitions will be televised on NBC.