Women Athletes Power Russian Olympic Committee Team to Medals in Tokyo

The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) has snapped up 11 medals after three days of competition at the Tokyo Olympics, with its female athletes leading the way.

Vitalina Batsarashkina, 25, won the team’s first gold medal Sunday, winning the women’s 10 meter air pistol and setting an Olympic record of 240.3 points.

Fellow shooter Anastasia Galashina, 24, took the competition’s first silver medal Saturday after being edged out by China’s Yang Qian in the women’s 10 meter air rifle.

In fencing, defending Olympic champion Inna Deriglazova, 31, clinched the silver medal Sunday after losing a tit-for-tat bout against American Lee Kiefer in women’s foil individual fencing. Larisa Korobeynikova, 34, beat Italy’s Alice Volpi in another tight match to come away with the bronze medal.

Archer Svetlana Gomboyeva, 38, who had passed out Friday with sunstroke, helped teammates Yelena Osipova and Ksenia Perova to silver after being trounced 0-6 by South Korea on Sunday.

The ROC’s additional silver medal was won by Tatiana Minina, 24, who lost to 18-year-old American Anastasija Zolotic in the -57 kilogram weight category of the women’s taekwondo competition Sunday.

On Monday, the ROC clinched a second gold and fifth silver medal when fencer Sofia Pozdnyakova, 24 â€" daughter of four-time Olympic fencing champion and current ROC president Stanislav Pozdnyakov â€" defeated teammate Sofia Velikaya, 36, in women’s sabre competition.

The ROC’s third gold medal came in the men’s artistic gymnastics team final Monday.

Mikhail Artamonov, 24, won bronze in the men’s 58 kilogram taekwondo competition Saturday. And on Monday, divers Alexander Bondar, 27, and Viktor Minibayev, 29, took the bronze medal in the men’s synchronized 10 meter platform.

The ROC ranks fourth in the Tokyo Games' medal count overall.

Russian athletes are competing under the ROC flag due to a ban stemming from state-sponsored doping violations.

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