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Thrasher (centre) is taking part in her first Olympic Games [Getty Images]
Virginia Thrasher upsets China's Du Li to win women's air rifle event; bullet rips through tent at equestrian event.
American
teenager Virginia Thrasher won the first gold medal of the Rio 2016
Olympic Games, holding her nerve against two Chinese Olympic champions
to clinch the women's 10m air rifle event.
The
19-year-old US college champion, competing in her first Olympics, edged
out China's Du Li, who won gold in Athens in 2004, with an
Olympic-record score of 208 in the sport's new finals format.
Defending Olympic champion Yi Siling, also of China, took the bronze medal.
The youngest
of the eight finalists by several years, Thrasher established an early
lead after battling with the Russian shooter Daria Vdovina, who stumbled
midway through the competition and finished fifth.
Elsewhere,
Brazil's male beach volleyball pair Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt
made a winning start in their hunt for gold, beating their Canadian
opponents in straight sets on Copacabana's golden sand.
Both games
were close, but Brazil's gold medal favourites fed on a festive,
partisan crowd to defeat Josh Binstock and Samuel Schachter 2-0.
Later,
security officials on Saturday said they were investigating reports that
a bullet tore through a tent in the media area of the equestrian centre
in the Deodoro area of the Olympic park in Rio de Janeiro.
"Security is
investigating that incident and will make a statement later," the venue
manager Anja Krabbe told Reuters news agency.
Earlier, the
sound of a loud blast shook the media seats near the finishing line of
the men's cycling road race when Brazil's bomb squad carried out a
controlled detonation on an unattended backpack.
A witness
reported seeing bomb squad agents in protective clothing operating near
the area where media were seated on the boulevard of Copacabana beach.
That followed the controlled detonation of another unattended bag near
the same spot on Friday evening during the opening ceremony for the
Games.
A
spokeswoman for the public security department said officials believe
the bag may have belonged to a homeless man, but protocol requires that
any unattended objects be destroyed.
The 2016
Olympics in Rio de Janeiro were officially opened with a flamboyant
ceremony celebrating Brazil’s history and cultural diversity on Friday
night.
Marathon
runner Vanderlei Cordeiro, who was denied victory at the 2004 Athens
Games when he was attacked by a spectator, lit the iconic cauldron.
Protests
marred the lead-up to the opening ceremony but Al Jazeera's Latin
America editor Lucia Newman said the mood in Rio had completely changed.
"What a difference a day makes," she said.
"Yesterday,
Copacabana was full of protesters and people were very angry about the
Olympics, and at the interim president. But now, after they saw the
opening ceremony, they were moved and very, very proud.
"They seem to be warming up a bit to the Olympics."
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