Paris 2024: Manu Bhaker wins Bronze, India’s first Olympic shooting medal in 12 years
Manu Bhaker of India put the disappointment of Tokyo Olympics behind with an impressive bronze medal at the Paris edition.
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Manu Bhaker (via IMAGO)
Manu Bhaker, the pistol shooter who had started the Indian shooting revival with a gold in her debut World Cup in Guadalajara as a 16-year-old in 2018, has raised the bar again by winning a Bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics. This is India’s first Olympic shooting medal after London 2012.
With this win in Women’s 10m Air Pistol she has accomplished many Olympic firsts – she became the first Indian woman to win a shooting medal, only the second Indian pistol shooter ever to win a medal and the first Indian medal winner at the 2024 Paris Games.
Her performance was similar to current Indian team chef-de-mission Gagan Narang’s at London 2012 in many ways – like Narang, Bhaker finished 3rd in qualifications (580-27x), had a strong, confident start in the finals (with a 10.6 and 10.2 as her first 2 shots) and was never out of a medal position though without ever seriously challenging for Gold.
Trịnh Thu Vinh (578-26x) was briefly tied with Bhaker for 3rd place but the Vietnamese shooter faded away in the latter stages of the match while the Indian kept shooting 10s.
Manu Bhaker aside, the battle for gold was tense
The battle for gold was a tussle between Koreans Oh Ye-Jin (582-20x) and Kim Yeji (578-16x) after the First Stage. The latter was in the lead during the middle of the match but the former finished with Gold and an Olympic Record of 243.2 after subsequently shooting several 10s.
Bhaker did not let the intensity drop after the First Stage where she finished 3rd; after 2 9.8s in the fourth series, she came back with 7 10s in her next 8 shots and almost made it to the silver medal position. It was a 10.5 from Kim that denied Bhaker 2nd place by 0.1 points.
Other finalists included Tokyo 2020 bronze winner Jiang Ranxin (577-13x), fellow Chinese Li Xue (577-23x), Turkey’s Sevval Ilayda Tarhan (577-15x) and qualification topper Veronika Major (582-22x) of Hungary.
Manu Bhaker writes Bollywood Biopic script
The Indian shooting team had failed spectacularly in the Tokyo Olympics three years ago and Manu Bhaker was made the face of the disaster.
She copped a lot of criticism and trolling after suffering a pistol malfunction and failing to qualify for the Women’s 10m AP and 25m Pistol finals and a shockingly poor performance in the 10m AP Mixed finals that denied herself and Saurabh Chaudhary a chance of a medal they were favoured to win.
Unlike Saurabh though, she took the failure in her stride, did not let it get the better of her and put in consistent performances throughout the intervening three-year period that ensured her selection for Paris.
The Manu Bhaker of Tokyo was young and inexperienced. The Manu Bhaker of Paris is mature (at 22!), calm and self-assured. It has been a fascinating journey of personal growth, almost following the same beats as Bollywood sports biopics.
The subject of biopics always wins gold in the end. Bhaker still has two more chances to craft an all-time blockbuster in Paris.
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Niyati
(168 Articles Published)