When Anish Bhanwala finished 13th at the Paris Olympics and could not make the six-man final at the Chateauroux Shooting Range, he called his father Jagpal Bhanwala. The conversation revolved around the positive learning curve of her first Olympic experience and how this experience would shape her career going forward. On Sunday evening, Bhanwala, who has shown rapid progress over the last two years, became the first Indian shooter to win a medal in the men’s 25m rapid fire event at the World Championships with a silver in the final in Cairo, Egypt.

“People ask me about the disappointment in Paris but then I always looked at the Paris Olympics as something that taught me a lot and also gave me the joy of competing on the biggest stage. And I took a break of more than four months after Paris to rest and look at the positivity of Paris.

Sometimes when you shoot continuously, you think too much but I wanted to look back on Paris as a good memory. Earlier, I had taken a screenshot on my phone of the World Cup in Doha next month. “I had kept the remaining three spots as my target for the Cup finals as an indirect challenge in my mind for a month, but winning India’s first silver medal in this event at the World Championships also ends the disappointment of the 2018, 2022 and 2023 World Championships,” Bhanwala told The Indian Express from Cairo.