A spinal injury ended Adriana Ruano's chances of competing at the Olympics as a gymnast. She came back as a shooter and won Guatemala's first gold medal on Wednesday, the AP reports. Ruano was training for the 2011 world championships in gymnastics, a qualifier for the London Olympics the following year, when she felt pain in her back. Scans showed she had six damaged vertebrae—a career-ending injury at age 16—and she spent a year recovering, wearing a brace. Ruano's doctor recommended she take up shooting if she wanted to stay in sports without aggravating her injured back. "When I had my injury, I didn't have anything. I started to get desperate, and I was frustrated. Then the door opened for me with this sport," Ruano said.
More than a decade after Ruano swapped the balance beam and vault for a shotgun, her doctor's advice paid off Wednesday when she won the women's trap with an Olympic-record score of 45 out of 50. Ruano closed her eyes and took a deep breath before hitting her 43rd target to make sure Italian silver medalist Silvana Stanco couldn't catch her for the gold. She missed her next two shots after that, but it didn't matter. Ruano placed 26th at the last Olympics in Tokyo, shortly after her father had died. Coming into Paris, though, she was the defending Pan-American Games champion. (This Olympic markswoman is being hailed as the "coolest person ever.")
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