Manu Bhaker: From almost giving up shooting to near-perfect score in Olympic selection trial

There was a remarkable, nerveless ease about Manu Bhaker’s shooting on Saturday, showing no remaining scar tissue from her disappointing outing at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, or from the tumultuous few years that followed it.

The 22-year-old scored a near-perfect 47 – six points more than the existing World Record of South Korea’s Yang Jin – which saw her score seven rounds of perfect 5s and three rounds of 4s, to win the first 25m women’s pistol shooting Olympic selection trial at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi. Trials scores, however, don’t count for world records, as it’s not an international event.

She ended eight points ahead of Rhythm Sangwan (39). Abhidnya Patil finished third with a score of 37 while Simranpreet Kaur finished fourth, and Esha Singh, who recently won four medals at the Asian Games last year, slumped to fifth after qualifying first on Friday.

In the first men’s 25m rapid fire pistol trial, which also took place on Saturday, Anish Bhanwala picked up a comfortable win with a score of 33 hits, straying clear of fellow quota-winner Vijayveer Sidhu, who finished in second place with a score of 27, while Adarsh Singh finished third with a score of 23.

This was the first of four trials that will determine the Indian shooting contingent for the 2024 Paris Olympic games in what is a jam-packed, convoluted schedule.

Winners of the first-ever #OlympicSelectionTrials Trials in the women’s 25M Pistol (L-R) Abhidnya Ashok Patil (3rd), Manu Bhaker (1st) & Rhythm Sangwan (2nd). Manu shot an incredible 47/50 in the final, a huge 6 above the world record. Congrats ladies🎊🎉🔥🔫🇮🇳#IndianShooting pic.twitter.com/bOV1IU1hG1

— NRAI (@OfficialNRAI) April 20, 2024

The average of the three best scores out of the four trials (two of which take place in New Delhi this week, while the other two take place in Bhopal) will determine the two best shooters, with bonus points for podium finishes and for winning India the Olympic quotas, which both Bhaker and Sangwan have done in this category.

But even within an increasingly competitive field, there was clear air between Bhaker and the rest, as she locked in and proved once again why hype has swirled around her ever since she was a teenager.

“It’s a world record score, so obviously, happy with that,” she said after the final on Saturday.

Bhaker went into Tokyo in form and as the World No. 1, but she would return empty-handed. Soon after, international medals would evade her, a two-year drought that would end at the shooting World Cup in March last year.

That was a period when Bhaker felt drained, her love for the sport began falling away – training and competing began feeling like a chore.

“Up until the beginning of 2023, I was on the edge of giving up. Although I was performing well and getting results, I was not satisfied with myself and was not in love with my sport,” she said. “I was not enjoying myself, it started feeling more like a 9-to-5 job for me.”

In recent times, though, she claims the passion has been reignited. After joining hands again with coach Jaspal Rana, the fuse has been relit. The monotony has lapsed.

“He (Rana) changed my routine and changed the way I do things, changed me mentally which refreshed me,” she said.

Bhaker already speaks like an athlete whose experiences have begun to shape her outlook on the sport and on life (she’s trying to read as much as she can, currently going through ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho). Regarding the competitive field, the 22-year-old is glad that “youngsters” are now coming through India’s shooting ranks.

She takes lessons from her “heartbreaking experience” in Tokyo into her stride too. “Three years is a long enough time to change any person, and I have also evolved. That experience will give me some strength and at least I will have the familiarity of the Olympics, being in the Games village and all of that,” she says. “The Olympic games experience teaches you a lot about life.”

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“Mental strength is what really matters there,” Bhaker says of the once-in-four-years opportunity of trying to win an Olympic medal. “It does not matter even if you are a World Champion. I’ve stopped looking at my rankings now because once you reach there, it really does not matter.”

There remains a substantial distance between the first Olympic trial and Paris – even when in form, bad days can prove costly, and Bhaker’s got plenty of experience in that area too. But if there were a perfect way to get the buildup started, Saturday’s performance was certainly as close to it as she could have gotten.

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