Kim Rhode

Arguably one of the best competitive shooters in either gender for more than two decades, Kim Rhode was the only woman in competitive shooting history to win three gold medals in the sport, and the only American athlete to win medals for an individual event in five consecutive Olympic Games. Born Kimberly Susan Rhode on July 16, 1979 in Whittier, California, she was introduced to shooting at an early age through sport hunting; by the time she was ten years of age, she was participating in American Skeet competitions. Three years later, Rhode had captured her first world championship title in women's double trap shooting. In 1996, she became the youngest female athlete in Olympic shooting history to win a gold medal in her chosen sport; the following year, Rhode graduated from Arroyo High School in El Monte, California and began her studies at Cal State Polytechnic University, from which she graduated with a degree in food marketing and agribusiness management. She returned to the Summer Olympic Games in 2000, winning a bronze in women's double trap shooting, before commencing on a lengthy winning streak at various international world cup competitions between 2001 and 2003. Rhode won her second and final gold medal in double trap shooting at the Athens Olympics in 2004; the sport was eliminated from the Olympic lineup for the 2008 games in Beijing, but Rhode had moved on to skeet shooting, and set a world record in the event at the 2007 World Cup competition in Santo Domingo with 98 hits, including a perfect 25 in the final round. In Beijing, she won a silver medal in skeet, but rebounded in 2012 to not only win her third gold medal in London, but also tie the Olympic world record for scoring in that event with a final tally of 99 points. Rode continued to dominate skeet shooting with World Cup wins throughout 2014 and the gold medal at the Pan American Games in 2015; in May 2016, her win at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Arkansas assured her place in the competition that year at the Summer Olympics in Rio.