All sportspersons carry some sort of reminder of their choice of profession. Wrestlers have cauliflower ears, judokas twisted knuckles, and weightlifters grazed shins. Manu Bhaker has her own memento as well. There’s a pressure sore around her thumb and forefinger and an angry red bunion at the base of her palm, around where she grips the wooden stock of her Pardini pistol. Her weapon’s hilt is custom-shaped, designed as much as possible to follow the curve of her palm.
There’s only so much it can do. Each time she fires a .22-inch caliber brass bullet, 1.4 kilos of wood and iron kick back and bite into her flesh. The 22-year-old is conscious of the blemish on her hand. “It’s not something I can get rid of. I’ve tried to treat it with creams, but it’s never going to disappear as long as I shoot. It will always be there,” she admitted.
The pressure sore around Manu Bhaker’s thumb and forefinger is a memento of the sport of her calling. | Photo Credit: JONATHAN SELVARAJ
The battle scars will last as long as she shoots. What will stay even after that are the two Olympic bronze medals Manu will return to India with. She’s already journeyed far into legend at this point. And she very nearly went even further. Competing in the final of the women’s 25m pistol event on Saturday, she finished fourth, by the barest of margins, losing a four-shots-to-three shootout to the reigning world champion Veronika Major of Hungary.
She fought hard throughout the competition, often contending for the lead. After the fifth series of five shots, she was in third place. By the sixth and seventh series, she moved up to second, just one point behind the leader and eventual winner, Jiin Yang of Korea. However, a weak eighth series saw Major force a shoot-off, and missing the fourth shot led to Manu’s elimination.
The result was disappointing for the dozens of Indian journalists and fans who travelled 250 km from Paris to this French town early in the morning. They were certain that the 22-year-old, who had already made so much history, would make more. For the first time in Chateauroux, Manu left the finals without a medal around her neck. After her event, she returned to her chair, placed next to the firing line for eliminated shooters and seemed puzzled by what had just happened.
After her event, she returned to her chair placed next to the firing line for eliminated shooters, she almost seemed quizzical at exactly what just happened. | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR
As Manu teared up, her coach Munkhbayar Dorjsuren, sitting behind her, offered a comforting hug. Though the moment was still raw, Manu soon began to see her fourth-place finish for what it was: a strong result in an otherwise nearly perfect tournament.
“Fourth position definitely doesn’t feel amazing, but there’s always a next time,” Manu said after the match. “I have two medals and plenty of motivation to prepare for the next opportunity. I will do my best and work really hard to achieve a better finish for India next time.”
Jaspal Rana, the coach whose partnership with Manu, has yielded such remarkable results, remarked that the tournament couldn’t have gone much better. “Two medals are incredible. A third would have been a miracle,” Jaspal said later.
Jaspal, who is usually hard to impress, allowed himself a rare moment of satisfaction after the match as his typical scowl gave way to a smile. Despite the heartbreaks that a fourth-place finish brings, it must be said that Manu’s performance was nearly perfect.
For most of the women’s 25m pistol final, Manu was right there fighting not just to stay in the competition but often sometimes for the lead. | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR
“It was perfect. Her lifts (when shooters pick up the gun on the signal and bring it down to the target) were perfect. Her time to shoot (shooters have 3 seconds to take each shot in a series of 5) was exactly what we have been practising for the last 13 months that we have been training together,” Jaspal said.
Even Manu’s competitors took note of her prowess. “Air pistol and sport pistol are, of course, different. For an air pistol, you don’t want to see too much movement in the gun, and you want to see some follow-through than when you shoot a sport pistol. But at the end of the day, when it comes to pistol shooting, it all comes down to consistency. When I saw the Indian shooter, I could tell that she was someone who had control of what she was doing. There were no moments where she broke emotion-wise or through inconsistency,” said USA pistol coach Jason Turner.
But while pistol might be a sport of consistency, it is also one of fine margins. In contrast to events like the 10m air pistol, where scores are counted to the decimal point and then totalled, sport shooters can only hit (score above a 10.2) or miss (score anything outside it). A bad score in air pistol might be devastating, but it’s not insurmountable in the women’s 25m pistol.
The Korean shooter, who eventually won gold in the event, fired three shots that only managed to hit the frame of the target. A single shot like that would have all but eliminated her from the competition then. In the 25m pistol event, all it registered was a no-hit—just the same as a score of 10.1.
“Even though Manu didn’t get that medal, I am happy that she was much better than her. She handled her pressure as well as she could have. And if it didn’t work out for her this time, it will work out eventually, and that’s what matters because this is not the end for Manu,” Jaspal said.
“The fact that Manu performed as well as she did—the way she lifts so cleanly, the way she follows through her shots— The way she kept her composure. She couldn’t have done it without the six hours of training we did each day. She has the proof of her effort in her mark on her hands. That is the hand of a shooter,” Jaspal added.
He promises Manu’s hand will carry the same marks for a long time to come. “There’s nothing good about missing a medal, but it keeps her hunger alive for Los Angeles 2028.”
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