Manu Bhaker, the first Indian lady who secured the bronze by shooting a 10-meter air pistol at the Paris Olympics opened India’s account in the Paris Olympics.
Now she becomes the face of the Paris Olympics in 2024. She secured the bronze with tearing eyes. Her memory of having a heavy heart of not winning the gold medal in the last Olympics. Failing in the 10m air pistol final of the pandemic games was long-lasting.
But after three years she returned as a great image and wiped out the old memories of 2021. Her eyes were full of joy and happiness with the bronze medal in which she carried a 10m pistol final on Sunday.
She embraced her special moment and walked with the tricolor along the group of fans bit a medal, and clicked a selfie with the winners.
The second day of the Olympics is the picture-perfect day for her and she is the first opener of the Olympic Games.
The proudest moment was when she became the first lady from India who win the first medal as a woman shooter which was a great achievement for her and the whole country.
Manus states to the reporters in Chateauroux “I had a dream that, I will win the game and stand here wearing a medal around my neck. Now it feels so good.”
From the beginning till the end, from first short to finals she remains in the same position at the top three positions with a score of 221.7 points and secured bronze.
She was almost about to win silver when Kim Yeji shot at 10.5. Yeji was just 0.1 points ahead of Manu and limited to only bronze and that’s how Oh Ye Jin won silver and gold in Paris in the Olympics.
It rarely happens that someone wins the medal in shooting in a few years. There were no medals won by Indians in 2016. Only Vijay Kumar won the silver and Gagan Narang secured the bronze in this year.
After that, there were no medals won by the Indian shooters. Manu has been the 1st shooter in the game since 2012 when she won the medal. The 22-year-old girl from Haryana made it possible in this Paris Olympics. And be the first woman in a shooting game.
Also, she shares her thoughts with the audience “I’m so grateful that I could break the chain and get this medal”.
The chain was broken in multiple ways. The Indian shooting team had struggled in the previous two Olympics. Manu was a shadow of herself in the immediate result of Tokyo. The rising star carrying the pistol had become depressed and exhausted.
Results slowed down; confidence dropped. The post-Tokyo response made her recognize that public memory is limited, and she forgot her teen victories at the 2018 Youth Olympics and Commonwealth Games.
She Dreams again. Her enjoyment of shooting is different. Manu stepped back, paused, and hit the reset button. That means returning to junior competition and merging with her long-time mentor, Jaspal Rana.
Manu entered these Games with an open mind, taking online violin lessons in the months above them and simply being herself. It was a lesson she learned in Tokyo when she went a little too far into her shell. That was cracked and the final result was an Olympic gold.
“If I didn’t have that lesson in my life, maybe I wouldn’t be here today,” Manu joked. “So I’m glad that at such a young age, in my first Olympics experience, I learned the kind of things that people take years to learn.”
In three years, Manu went from being depressed to being back again. That was the hope that Indian shooting brought to these Games, and Manu’s medal has reignited that emotion among the mission in Chateauroux.
Elavenil Valarivan, a rifle shooter who had just missed out on qualifying for the women’s 10m air rifle final and sat expressionless in her chair, couldn’t help smiling from the stands as she saw Manu beaming away. Fellow shooters and officials walked around, optimistic that this was just the beginning.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi contacted Manu Bhaker to congratulate her on her medal win, which she much appreciated.
But she’s not finished yet.
Manu will compete in two more events here: the 10m air pistol mixed team on Monday and the individual 25m pistol. “I have many more matches to shoot,” she remarked.
