Manu Bhaker, India’s pistol prodigy, scored a Bronze Medal in the Women’s 10m Pistol Event – the first of India’s medal count at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Her Olympics debut at Tokyo in 2020 had ended with her in tears as she finished medal-less across categories owing to a pistol malfunction. Just 19 then, she is 22 now: Stronger, wiser and steadier as she finished her round strong. Of the 22 shots she took, just 7 were in the ‘9’ ring, qualifying for the finals in third place with a score of 580. She became the third Indian woman to enter the final rounds of an individual shooting event at the Olympics. She clinched her Bronze victory with an amazing 221.7.
The young athlete was in silver medal place until her final score was exceeded by South Korea’s Kim Yeji by a narrow margin of 0.1. Another Korean Ye Jin Oh took the gold medal.
Bhaker’s win is a historic landmark as she’s the first Indian woman shooter (solo) to win a medal in the history of the Olympics.
Unique Training Style
Manu’s coach, Jaspal Rana, is of the belief that all and every sport thrives on tough love. He set up a penalty based system for the prodigal athlete where he’d set ambitious targets for her. She would be given a target of say 580 (out of theoretically possible 600 in air pistol). Falling short of the target meant paying a fine. If she shot a 576, she would owe a fine of €4 that her coach would then give to charity.
This fine was amped up manifolds as the Olympics drew closer. One such incident was when a street dancing troupe held out their hats in front of two Indians having dinner in Luxembourg. Hoping to score some stray coins, they were surprised to see the woman empty a stack of euros in their hats! Her glum generosity was an enforced one, a part of her coach’s training plan. This was Manu Bhaker and her coach efficiently proving the upsides of negative reinforcement in sports.
Today, she’ll be competing in the women’s 10m pistol mixed team event and later in the week she’ll also be participating in the 25m pistol event
