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Olympian Raiza Dhillon won a silver medal in the women’s skeet event at the current International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Junior World Cup in Suhl, Germany, on Thursday, under difficult circumstances.

In the 60-shot final, the Indian fired 51 targets, behind the British player Phoebe Bodley-Scott, who shot 53. Bronze went to home favorite Annabella Hettmer.

During her last junior year, Raiza’s efforts earned her her first ISSF World Cup medal at any level. In addition, it was India’s third medal at the coveted Suhl Junior World Cup and the second silver to follow Kanak’s gold in the women’s air pistol on Wednesday.

Elegant work

After three rounds of qualifying, Raiza started the day in fourth position with a score of 71, meaning she had a lot of work ahead of her. She qualified second after shooting rounds of 22 and 23.

Crucially, it was winning a three-way 24-shot shootout between Phoebe, Hettmer, and herself that secured the second position rather than the 116 points she had summoned across five rounds.

With four clean hits on the opening Station 3 of the final, she carried that confidence throughout the match and finished second behind Phoebe after hitting the first ten targets with only one miss.

After the final, Raiza said, “Yesterday was fine, but today was really cold and windy.” Misses began to occur everywhere as the circumstances became more challenging.

Lidiya Basharova of Kazakhstan was the first to be eliminated after 20 targets, followed by British junior world champion Madeleine Russell and Italian junior European champion Arianna Member. Raiza’s 32 hits in the first 40 targets guaranteed the country a medal.

With her sights set on gold, she hit 19 of the following 20 targets, while Raiza only managed to hit silver, allowing Phoebe to take a three-target lead into the last ten.

“Yes, winning a medal in the ISSF World Cup is wonderful. I thought I would see benefits after adjusting my technique before to the Olympics and just settling into it afterward. I brought that confidence with me here after making it to the final of the Peru Senior World Cup. Now, I’m focused on the next Lonato World Cup,” she said.

Additional Indian results for the day:

Skeet for Women

22, 23 21 20 23 (109) 15th Vanshika Tiwari

22, 22, 22, 20, 20 (106) 19th Yashasvi Rathore

Sisidiya Mohika: 19, 18, 20, 22, 21, (100)–28th

Skeet for Men

Lally Harmehar: 24, 22, 22, 24, 25, (117)–7th

Singh Bedi Zoravar: 23, 22, 22, 22, 23, (112)-29th

Libra Ishaan Singh: 25, 22, 22, 20, 22, 11–35

Sisodiya Jyotiraditya: 20, 23, 23, 21, 23, 110)–38th

Rajawat, Atul Singh: 22, 20, 22, 22, 19, (105)–54th

Mixed 10m Air Pistol Team

Chirag Sharma/Urva Chaudhary: 576-5th

Sanskriti Bana/Pushpender Singh: 560–21st

Rifle Positions for 50m

Karmakar Adriyan-589

Nitin Waghmare-587, a Vedant

Shekhawat, Manvendra Singh, 577

Naruka-572 Harshvardhan Singh

Kanyan Rohit-560 (deceased)