New Delhi, Dec 19: If ever there was proof needed that Manu Bhaker had prodigious talent, she provided it at the Paris Olympics with two bronze medals, scripting history in a year when shooting was as much about success as it was about missing medals by wafer-thin margins.
Shooting is about individual glory and Manu took it to a different level by first finishing on the podium in 10m air pistol and then combining with an equally happy-go-lucky marksman Sarabjot Singh to clinch a second bronze in 10m mixed team to become India’s first woman athlete with two medals in the quadrennial showpiece.
With a record 21 shooters in Paris, India finally ended nearly a decade-long medal drought in the sport, returning with three bronze, with the unassuming Swapnil Kusale, a TTE with Central Railways, finishing the campaign with a third-place finish in 50m rifle 3-positions.
The spotlight, though, was firmly on Manu following her Tokyo Games dejection three summers back, where a pistol malfunction had ended her hopes.
Manu confidently stepped into Chateauroux range on the outskirts of Paris as she gave a performance befitting a champion to end the country’s medal drought.
The success was met with an outpouring of emotion for the champion and her coach Jaspal Rana, who had to go through nearly two years of trials and tribulations to achieve glory.
From being told to leave the shooting range due to a National Rifle Association of India SOP, to being forced to coach his ward from the spectators’ gallery, Jaspal had to endure barbs and insults, which in a way steeled the duo to tackle the challenge in Paris head on.
The champion summed up her Paris success by saying that Jaspal was like a father figure who gave her a lot of courage whenever she felt unsure about herself.
The relationship seems to have come a long way since a misunderstanding separated the two before the Tokyo Olympics, and with the 2028 Los Angeles Games up next, it can only mean more success for Manu.
Phenomenal year for Sarabjot, Swapnil
Sarabjot too enjoyed phenomenal success following his share of injury travails, which left him down and out for more than six months last year. There was a phase in the young Ambala shooter’s career when he was not able to even lift his pistol, let alone repeat the exercise 60 times in competition.
But careful planning and rehabilitation, saw him emerge from the career-threatening injury, which occurred in March last year, to become the joint bronze-medallist with Manu.
For Swapnil, it was an opportunity to give his coach, Deepali Deshpande, a dream redemption. The former shooter choked with emotions when her ward won the first-ever medal in 50m rifle 3-positions at the Olympics.
Once a part of the national setup, Deepali was the scapegoat for Indian shooters’ abysmal performance at the Tokyo Olympics.
But Swapnil kept faith in her, hiring the veteran to once again reiterate the importance of personal coaches in achieving success, something which has been lost on the national federation.
Near-misses galore in Paris
While Manu, Sarabjot and Swapnil took centrestage, some like rifle marksman Arjun Babuta and shotgun exponents Maheshwari Chauhan and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka found themselves heartbroken, finishing fourth in Paris but promising a glorious future for shooting sport.
Babuta, missed the men’s 10m air rifle bronze, while the mixed skeet team of Maheshwari and Naruka lost the medal to China in a tense showdown.
Manu too missed a historic hat-trick, finishing fourth in the women’s 25m sports pistol event after a heroic performance.
Olympic trials and litigations
The lead-up to the Paris Olympics was marred by selection issues with the national federation’s Olympic Selection Trials (OST) at the centre of a litigation and discontent among top shooters.
The court petition called into question the criteria for the OST with only five shooters being allowed in each category. Several shooters, who had earned quota places for the country but not performed well in the OST, asked the federation to rethink its decision.
Shooters like men’s 10m air rifle world champion Rudrankksh Patil and women’s 10m air rifle exponent Tilottama Sen missed out, while Sandeep Singh and Ramita took their place in the Paris-bound contingent. (PTI)
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