Manu Bhaker Paris Olympics 2024: Indian shooter Manu Bhaker has created history. She has won the bronze medal by performing brilliantly in the Paris Olympics 2024. Manu has become the first Indian woman to win any medal in shooting. Manu Bhaker’s journey to this medal has not been easy.
This is only Manu Bhaker’s second Olympics. She made her debut in the last Tokyo Olympics 2020, but her pistol malfunctioned during the 10m air pistol qualification round. Due to this, she could not win a medal last time. Apart from this, she also missed out on winning medals in the mixed team 10m pistol and 25m pistol events.
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The only Indian athlete to participate in multiple events
22-year-old Manu Bhaker is competing in the women’s 10m air pistol, 10m air pistol mixed team and women’s 25m pistol events at the Paris 2024 Olympic shooting competition. She is the only athlete from the 21-member Indian shooting team to compete in multiple individual events.
Manu had secured a Paris 2024 Olympics quota for India after finishing fifth in the women’s 25m pistol event at the 2023 Asian Shooting Championships. Manu Bhaker is the youngest Indian to win a gold medal at the ISSF World Cup. She is also the Commonwealth Games champion in the women’s 10m air pistol event at Gold Coast 2018, where she won the top medal with a CWG record.
Manu Bhaker is also the first Indian shooter and the country’s first female athlete to win a gold medal at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires 2018. She won the women’s 25m team pistol title at the Asian Games last year.
After an eye injury, he left boxing and started shooting
Born in Jhajjar, Haryana, Manu Bhaker participated in tennis, skating and boxing competitions during her school days. Apart from this, she also participated in a martial art called ‘Than Ta’, which won medals at the national level. Manu got injured in the eye during boxing, after which her journey in boxing ended. But Manu had a different passion for sports, due to which she managed to become an excellent shooter.
Manu decided to make a career in shooting at the age of 14, at that time Rio Olympics 2016 had just ended. Within a week of this, she asked her father to bring her a shooting pistol. Her ever-supporting father Ram Kishan Bhaker bought her a gun and that was a decision that one day made Manu Bhaker an Olympian.