Last year, when the then-20-year-old Raiza Dhillon competed in the Paris Olympics in the women’s skeet event, the Panchkula resident was the youngest Indian shooter at Paris. Even though Dhillon, who had bagged the Paris quota for India in the Asian Qualifiers in Kuwait last year, finished 23rd and missed the final, the Haryana youngster spent some time with Paris Olympics silver medallist Amber Rutter of Great Britain.
On Thursday, as the 21-year-old won the silver medal with Phoebe Bodley-Scott of Great Britain at the ISSF Junior World Cup, the Haryana shooter was recalling the conversation she had with Rutter in Paris.
“At the Paris Olympics, Amber Rutter was shooting after a gap of more than two years post her child’s birth. Post her silver medal win, when I approached her, she told me, “Enjoy shooting and give your best, rest of the things will fall in place.’ That was the biggest lesson for me from Paris and this silver medal I would surely dedicate to Rutter’s inspiring words to me,” said Dhillon while speaking with The Indian Express.
Daughter of agriculturist Ravijit Singh Dhillon and Gul Dhilon, a sarpanch of their native village Shamgarh near Karnal in Haryana, Raiza along with Maheshwari Chauhan had become the first Indian women skeet shooters to compete at Olympics in Paris. The Haryana youngster, who had won a silver in the Junior World Championships in Changwon in 2023 had become only the second Indian woman skeet shooter to achieve so after Ganemat Sekhon in 2021. Prior to the Olympics, Dhillon would spend her time in Italy and India training under her personal coaches Ennio Falco and Amarinder Singh Cheema and to work on some changes in her technique.
“I was struggling with taking too much time on shooting my first shot which would result in getting very less time to shoot the second shot whether in the four shot round and two shot round in finals. So we were working on that and skeet shooting is something, where a minor change in technique also takes a lot of time. Of course, I would have wanted a better finish in the Paris Olympics but then I could not and I just treat it as the start to my shooting career,” says Raiza.
Post Olympics, Raiza matched the junior national qualification record with a qualification score of 122 and followed that with matching Ganemat Sekon’s national record of 124 with a score of 124/125 in the All India Inter-University Championships in February this year. Last month, Dhillon also made her first Senior World Cup final when she finished fifth in the ISSF World Cup in Lima last month.
In Lima, Dhillon competed against the likes of three-time Olympic champion Kimberley Rhode of USA apart from Paris Olympics mixed team bronze medallist Yiting Jian of China, 2021 World Championships silver medallist Samantha Simonton of USA and multiple world championship and world cup medallist and Olympian Dania Jo Vizzi of USA.
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“Competing in my first senior World Cup final was another high. While the Americans shoot the American style of mounting the gun from the right side, my technique is shooting the Italian way mounting the gun diagonally. And all of them there gave me some insights and to feel the final pressure too was a learning experience,” said Dhillon.
On Thursday, Raiza qualified at the second spot behind Zarina Madeleine Russell of Great Britain after a three-way 24-shoot off between her, Phoebe Bodley-Scott and Annabella Hettmer of Germany, who were tied with a score of 116 each. In the final, Dhillon missed only one shot out of the first ten shots and would miss one shot again to be placed at the top ahead of Scott due to higher bib number. Even though she missed three of next 10 shots, Raiza maintained the top-three position after 30 shots with 25 hits and was behind Scott by one point. The next 30 shots saw Raiza miss only one shot as she won the silver with a score of 51 behind Scott’s score of 53.
“Conditions were very windy today and the targets were going up and down instead of following a straight path. So I had to counter that with some quick movements of the gun. In recent times, I also had some problem with shooting at the two shot round with some struggle in hitting the second shot.I had conversations with national coach Riccardo Filippelli earlier and he had made some technical changes in my shooting for the second shot as the two-shot round sees the targets being the farthest from a shooter in skeet. I did miss some in the third series of ten shots but then I managed my cool in windy conditions to win the silver,” concluded Raiza.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
