22-year-old Manu Bhaker on Sunday made India proud after winning a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics 2024. Manu Bhaker won bronze in the women's 10m air pistol category. With this, she also opened India's medal tally on the scoreboard. After winning the bronze, Manu Bhaker also became the first woman to win a medal in pistol shooting.
During the streaming of Manu Bhaker's match, commentators pointed out that the 22-year-old was mulling to give up sports due to the Tokyo Olympics controversy. For the unversed, during the Tokyo Olympics, a malfunctioned gun had left Manu Bhaker distraught three years ago. She was not allowed to change the gun during the event. After the match, Manu Bhaker talked to the media and said, "I read a lot of Gita, focus on your process, not the result, that was going through my mind in the final moment."
Now, the question arises who is Manu Bhaker, India's first woman to win a medal at the Paris Olympics 2024?
Who is Manu Bhaker?
Born in Jhajjar, Haryana, a state known for its boxers and wrestlers, Manu Bhaker took to sports like tennis, skating, and boxing in school. She also participated in a form of martial arts called ‘thang ta’, winning medals at the national level. Manu Bhaker's father Ram Kishan Bhaker is professionally a chief engineer in the Merchant Navy. Until the age of 14, Manu excelled in other sports like Huyen langlon, a Manipuri martial art, as well as boxing, tennis, and skating, winning medals at the national games in these events.
She then impulsively decided to try her hand at shooting when she was just 14 – just after the 2016 Rio Olympics ended – and loved it. Within a week, Manu Bhaker asked her father to get her a sports shooting pistol to hone her craft.
She represented India at the 2018 ISSF World Cup and won two gold medals, becoming the youngest Indian to win a gold medal at the ISSF World Cup. She won the gold medal in women's 10 m air pistol event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games just at the age of 16 in her maiden Commonwealth Games appearance.