Ali Weisz ends U.S. women’s rifle drought at world shooting championships

Olympic shooter Ali Weisz became the first American woman to win an individual world championship in a rifle event in 43 years.

Weisz, a 27-year-old from Montana, took gold in the 10m air rifle at the world championships in Cairo on Friday, one year after placing 14th in the event in her Olympic debut.

She became the first U.S. woman to win an individual rifle medal of any color at worlds since Elizabeth Bourland‘s 50m prone bronze in 1998. The last U.S. woman to win a world gold in rifle was Karen Monez in 1979.

U.S. women’s recent shooting success has mostly come in shotgun events.

Weisz enlisted on active duty in May 2020. As of the Tokyo Olympics, she was serving as a shooter and instructor at the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit in Fort Benning, Georgia.

While at the University of Mississippi, she split a playing card in half with an air rifle on her first attempt.

NBC Olympic Research contributed to this report.

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The U.S. women’s volleyball team finished fourth at the world championship, one year after winning the program’s first Olympic title in Tokyo.

The Americans were swept by Italy 25-20, 25-15, 27-25 in Saturday’s bronze-medal match. The U.S. lost its previous contest to Serbia in the semifinals.

The world championship in volleyball is quadrennial, like the Olympics, making it the single biggest tournament between the Tokyo and Paris Games. The U.S. men lost in the quarterfinals of their quadrennial worlds last month.

The U.S. women’s roster at worlds lacked three-time Olympian stalwarts from Tokyo — Jordan Larson, who said before the Tokyo Games that she would retire from the national team afterward, and Foluke Akinradewo Gu