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- San Marino became the smallest country to win an Olympic medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
- Shooter Alessandra Perilli earned bronze in the women's trap shooting event.
- San Marino is a microstate located in northern Italy and has a population of just 33,860.
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San Marino just became the smallest country to win a medal in the history of the Olympics as Alessandra Perilli took bronze in the women's trap shooting event.
The microstate, which is surrounded on all sides by Italy, has a population of just 33,860 and had never earned a medal in any of its previous 23 Olympic appearances. San Marino is so small that at its widest point, crossing the whole country by car takes only 25 minutes.
33-year-old shooter Perilli scored 29 points in the final, 14 behind winner Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova of Slovakia who set an Olympic record on her way to gold, and just three points ahead of fourth place Australian Laetisha Scanlan.
-Olympics (@Olympics) July 29, 2021
The medal will taste extra sweet for Perilli who came so close to the same feat at London 2012. Competing in her first Olympics, the shooter finished in a three-way tie for second place but in the following shoot-off, she missed first which ended her and her country's chances of a medal.
Following a disappointing Olympics in Rio where she did not qualify for the finals, she came to Tokyo with a renewed motivation and has made history, ousting Liechtenstein as the smallest nation by population to win an Olympic medal.
San Marino isn't the first country to make medal history at Tokyo.
Earlier in the games Bermuda's Flora Duffy won gold in the women's triathlon event, making her home nation the smallest by land size to win a gold in Olympic history, while Hidilyn Diaz, a weightlifter from the Philippines, became her country's first-ever gold medalist.