Siberian teenager wins silver in shooting thanks to hunting lessons from age of 6

Vitalina won silver in air pistol shooting from 10 metres, losing the gold to China's Zhang Mengxue. She thanked her grandfather Grigory Trokhleb, 66, for taking her hunting at such a young age. 

'When I was six, I sat in a boat with him, closing my ears when he was shooting,' she said. 'When I was about 10, I learned to shoot from the gun. On 8 March [International Womens' Day, state holiday in Russia] that year, my grandfather gave an air rifle. At 11, I killed my first prey. It was a small teal.

'He brought me to sports shooting  when I was 12. At first, I didn't like there, but then I felt some excitement. 

'My other grandpa [Mikhail Batsharashkin] is also involved in hunting, and my dad [Igor Batsarashkin]  is a former policeman. So it was hard not to shoot in such a family. They all know how to shoot and there was a lot I could learn from them.

'Last time I was hunting with grandpa, I killed three ducks and overtook him. He nabbed two. Maybe I will go for the duck hunting when come back.'

Meanwhile, there were also silvers for Russian women's archery team - Tuyana Dashidorzhieva, 20, (TransBaikal region), Inna Stepanova (Buryatia), and Ksenia Petrova, 27, (Sverdlovsk region), losing to South Korea.

The last time Russian's women archers won medals was back in Soviet times, in 1987. Both Stepanova and Dashidorzhieva are ethnic Buryats. 

Archery is a traditional sport in the Republic of Buryatia, in southern Siberia.