MAN(U) of steel: Manu Bhaker becomes first Indian woman shooter to win a medal at Olympics

Ahead of the last shot, Manu Bhaker was in silver medal position. A 0.1-point lead over her South Korean rival Kim Ye-ji, and assured of a medal. That’s when it dawned on all of us.

The significance of the achievement!
Trolled and abused in Tokyo 2021, contemplating giving up the sport and wanting to retire just a year back, she is today an Olympic medalist with a bronze at the Paris Games on Sunday in the 10m Air Pistol event. It’s India’s first in the 2024 Games, and the first-ever medal for a woman shooter from the country. What’s more? She has two more events to shoot.


That’s sport for you. It can be cruel, but, in the end, it does give back to the truest devotees. Manu is one.

With Jaspal Rana in her corner, she has turned the corner and how. From the gun malfunction three years back to never losing the top-three spots in the final on Sunday, Manu shot like a woman possessed. And in all this it was redemption. From agony and pain, it was triumph of an epic proportion. A deep dive into her training regime and you know she did not have a life for literally a year. Not allowed an extra hour of sleep when she craved for it, not allowed a day of leave from training, it was much like a military boot camp with no breaks whatsoever. Jaspal wasn’t willing to compromise. Not even for a day. It was a mission.

In the real sense it was war minus the shooting. And in doing so, Manu was battle ready. She was much like a woman on a mission and we had the first taste of it in the trials. She shot brilliantly and suddenly from shooting one event, she was entered to shoot in three. That’s when things really changed. That’s when all of India knew that Manu was onto something special. And on both days of shooting here in Paris, she showed a level of consistency very rare for an Indian athlete. In doing so, she has broken the jinx. The first shooting medal in 12 years -- since Vijay Kumar and Gagan Narang at London 2012.

More could follow but as Manu could well become the first ever Indian athlete to win two medals in a single Olympic Games.

In fact, for those who know, you just don’t put it past her in the 10m Mixed Team Pistol and the 25m Air Pistol events that follow. By her own admission she did not have a good night’s sleep after qualification for the 10m Air Pistol event. She was nervous and jittery. Very understandable as after Tokyo, however much you try, was still raw.

The hundreds of thousands of tweets of abuse were still all out there. And that’s where you need mental strength. Resilience of a kind that you normally don’t associate with a 22-year-old. But then, you aren’t speaking of a normal 22-yr-old. Manu was always a prodigy and is now an Olympic champion to go with it. What does this medal do for the Indian campaign? More from the shooters? With Ramita Jindal and Arjun Babuta having qualified for women’s and men’s 10 m Air Rifle finals, respectively, and Manu all set to take the shooting range again on Monday, the sport could well give us 3-4 medals.

On a day when the women’s archery mixed team of Bhajan Kaur, Deepika Kumari and Ankita Bhakat disappointed with a shocking show against the Netherlands, Manu and the shooting contingent are a ray of hope. As Manu put it: “You don’t always win”.

In fact in sport you will lose far more than you win and Manu knows it better than anyone. And that’s why this win is not a flash in the pan. It could be the start of many more for her and company. And, if that happens, it could well be the first indication that Paris will be India’s bestever Games and a double digit medal count could be a reality. For shooting, it is the end of a a 12-year curse.