The odds were not in Khatuna Lorig's favor.
The American archer, who coached actress Jennifer Lawrence on the use of a recurve bow for her role as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, will come home from London without a medal despite her best-ever individual finish in the Olympic Games. Lorig advanced to the semi-finals before losing to gold medal favorite Ki Bo-bae of South Korea, and was unable to overcome Mexico's Mariana Avitia for the bronze.
Lorig won a bronze medal in the team competition at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, when she was a member of the Unified Team that represented the countries of the former Soviet Union. She later moved to the U.S., but was unable to get American citizenship in time for the 1996 Games in Atlanta, so she competed for the Republic of Georgia in 1996 and 2000. In 2008, her first Olympics as a naturalized U.S. citizen, Lorig advanced to the quarterfinals before bowing out to eventual bronze medalist Yun Ok-Hee of South Korea.
This time, Lorig was able to get past French archer Berengere Schuh on a 6-2 margin, but slipped against Ki in the semifinals. Against Avitia in the bronze medal contest, Lorig fell into an early 4-0 hole before winning the third set by a 25-24 margin. She started strong in the fourth set with a bulls-eye, but scored an eight and a six on her next two shots, and Avitia bounced back from an eight on her first shot to finish with a pair of nines, clinching the set and the bronze medal.
