Born in village Goria, district Jhajjar, Haryana, Manu Bhaker is a well-known Olympian shooter. 19-year-old Manu has won four gold medals in the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Junior World Championship. Notably, she is part of the Indian Shooting Team that has won 43 medals, including 17 gold, 16 silver and ten bronze in the tournament. India has topped the table ending the Championship on a high.
Till the age of 14, Manu had tried her hands in different sports, including boxing, tennis and skating at the national level. She won medals in Huyen Langdon, a Manipuri martial art. After the 2016 Rio Olympics, she expressed her desire to try her hands at shooting. Her father, who is a chief engineer in Merchant Navy, obliged her daughter’s wish and acquired a sport shooting pistol for practice.
Manu’s decision to try shooting showed excellent results in a short span, and she managed to win a gold in women’s 10 m air pistol event at Commonwealth Games, 2018, at the age of 16. In 2017 Manu further surprised everyone by defeating Olympian and former world No.1 Heena Sidhu during national shooting championships. She broke Sidhu’s record in the finals in the 10m Air Pistol event.
She continued to win medals in national and international events in single and team events. In 2018, though she did not win a medal in Asian Games, she made history in Youth Olympics that were held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She became the first Indian shooter and the first female athlete from India to win gold in the event.
Four gold medals in ISSF 2021 for Manu Bhaker
Manu secured four gold medals in ISSF 2021. Her first gold was in a 10 m air pistol event. The second gold was in a 10 m air pistol team event. The third gold came from the 10 m air pistol mixed team tournament, and the last one came from the 25 m air pistol team event.
Manu’s pistol has malfunctioned in Tokyo Olympics 2020
In the recent Olympics, though the expectations were high from Manu, her pistol malfunctioned during women’s 10m air pistol qualification event at the Asaka Shooting Range leading to her exit from the event. By the time her pistol malfunctioned, she only managed to shoot 16 shots out of the required 60 shots in 75 minutes. The broken part of her pistol took 17 minutes to repair, leading to the loss of precious time she needed to complete her target. As per reports, the cocking lever was damaged, without which she could not load the pellet. Though she managed to replace the damaged part, the problems did not stop there as the circuit in the grip or butt also stopped working.
Her coach had claimed Manu Bhaker was not ready for the ISSF tournament
This was the first time since 2018 Manu had decided to take part in the junior circuit. However, her coach for Tokyo Olympics, Ronak Pandit, expressed his displeasure in September. As per the report in Times of India, he had said that Manu should have taken time to fix her ‘technical flaws’.
He said there were some technical issues with her performance that she needed to work on. “I had given her a detailed programme, that whenever you are ready to start, let me know, we will take it ahead and all those things. But she hasn’t bothered to contact me,” he said.
“Suddenly, I get to know that she is going to the Junior World Championships and participating in five events. As far as I am concerned, she is not ready to compete. She has technical issues, which need to be resolved before an athlete can start competing again,” Rohan said. He said sportspersons could not hop and jump from one competition to another, thinking they were superhuman which they are not.
