Manu Bhaker earned India’s first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics by winning bronze in the women’s 10m air pistol shooting event on Sunday.
The win makes Bhaker the first Indian woman to win a shooting medal at the Olympics. Bhaker also ended India’s 12-year wait for a shooting medal after Gagan Narang and Vijay Kumar won bronze and silver respectively at London 2012.
Bhaker was the only Indian to make it to the final after her qualification event on Saturday. On Sunday however, she started well to move into a medal position from the start and kept up in that position throughout the final.
Just before her last shot however, there was a chance that Bhaker could win the silver medal after South Korea’s Yeji Kim had a weak score of 9.4 in the first shot of the eighth series. Bhaker held a slender 0.1 lead that point.
In her last shot, she put up a strong 10.3. Kim needed a 10.5 to better Bhaker, and managed to do just that to push the Indian down to the bronze medal position.
“I feel great and it was a long overdue medal for India and I was just merely a mode to do it,” said Bhaker to the official broadcaster. “And India deserves more, even more medals, as many as possible. So we are looking forward to as many events as possible this time. The entire team has worked really hard.
“Personally, for me, the feeling is really surreal. I feel that I did a good job. I put in a lot of effort and even till the last shot, I was just fighting with all energy that I had. And this was a bronze. But I’m really grateful that I could win a bronze for India. Maybe better next time.”
Narang, India’s chef-de-mission in Paris, cut a happy figure after Bhaker ended India’s medal drought in shooting. The London 2012 medallist added that he hoped Bhaker’s medal would be the first of many for Indian shooters in Paris.
“When I won the medal in London, I had a huge monkey off my back and I think Indian shooting has another monkey off at their back today because Manu becomes the first women shooter to win an Olympic medal for the country,” Narang told the official broadcastor.
Jindal, Babuta in 10m air rifle final
Ramita Jindal and Arjun Babuta can follow in Bhaker’s footsteps on Monday after they qualified for the women’s and men’s 10m air rifle final respectively.
Jindal finished fifth with 631.5 points in qualifying after trailing outside the top eight for a majority of the round.
Elavneil Valarivan, however, missed out on a place in the final by just 0.6 points. Valarivan was in the top eight for a majority of the qualifying round but endured a horror final series where she shot 103.8 to finish 10th with 630.7 points.
In the men’s event, Babuta qualified for the final in seventh place with a score of 630.1 points. Fellow Indian Sandeep Singh missed out on a top eight finish as he finished 12th with a score of 629.3.
The women’s 10m air rifle final will be held at 1pm IST on Monday and will be followed by the men’s final at 3.30pm IST.
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