How Manu Bhaker overcame her failures at Tokyo 2020

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated October 28, 2024)
On a summer evening in mid-2023, Manu Bhaker sat down for a heart-to-heart meeting with her former coach and mentor, Jaspal Rana, at Starbucks in Khan Market, New Delhi. It was their first meeting in almost two years, after an acrimonious split that would be the talk of the town just before the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She, then world ranked #2 in 10m air pistol, alleged he wasn’t giving her enough attention. He, then the national team’s pistol coach, said she wasn’t his only priority and insisted she compete in only two events as opposed to three at the Tokyo Games. Come Olympics, Manu inexplicably faltered, unable to cope with the lofty expectations. Rana, unceremoniously sacked three months before the Games, took a chunk of the blame and the public ire for the India squad’s lacklustre performance at Tokyo, which saw the much-hyped contingent return with zero medals.
That Starbucks meeting, then, was to become a memorable act of reconciliation and a game-changing behind-the-scenes moment in Indian sport. What exactly did Manu tell Rana? “I told him if I want to shoot, I want to shoot only with you,” she recounts. “That I am thinking of leaving shooting altogether. That I’d been really trying a lot and it has been difficult. Hausla nahin bacha hai [I don’t have much courage left].” Rana, otherwise known to be a stern taskmaster, melted.
“To call me in this kind of situation would not have been easy for anyone. If at that age, she could have that courage to call me, then I said I’ll be up for it,” says Rana. “There was nothing to lose. We had lost everything.” He had only one precondition. “If we start digging up the past, a lot of things will come out, which will not be good for me, her or the country,” Rana recalls telling her.
That meeting would prove to be a turning point in Manu’s life. At the Paris Olympics this July-August, she not only won two bronzes to become India’s first female shooter to medal but also the first athlete in independent India to win two medals at an Olympics, a milestone that will be tough to beat. This, then, is the inside story of how Manu buried the ghosts of her failure and self-doubt in Tokyo to reinvent herself as the pistol-packing champion at Paris who would do India immensely proud.
MOVING ON, SETTING TARGETS
That night, Sumedha Bhaker, Manu’s mother, who was waiting eagerly for the update, felt a weight off her mind when she saw her daughter’s reaction-a huge smile. Sumedha, a former school principal, had always stood behind her daughter. Even now, she is a constant presence at the Karni Singh shooting range in New Delhi, where Manu practises at both the 10m and 25m ranges. A spirited woman, she had herself fired off a series of messages to Rana in March 2021 after he left her daughter in tears at the ISSF World Cup in New Delhi by choosing to wear one of Sumedha’s earlier messages on a T-shirt-“Mil gayi khushi na. Congratulations to you… aapko apna ego mubaarak [Are you happy now? Hope your ego is satisfied now”]. Infuriated, Sumedha recalls, “I told him he didn’t do right by her, that he had broken her heart, that he’d never find a student as good as her.”
So with the coffee diplomacy at the Khan Market cafe, it wasn’t just Manu who was starting afresh with Rana, Sumedha, too, was turning the page for the well-being of her daughter. On July 26, 2024, a day before the air pistol competition in Paris, she told Rana that she wanted the Manu-Rana “jodi” to be a “hit”. “Arjun aur Dronarcharya ke roop mein dekhna chahti hoon [I want to see you like Arjun and Dronacharya],” she told India Today, recalling the conversation. “Shaayad jis guruji ne itni mehnat karwayee, woh guruji wahaan thhe hi nahin, bhagwan woh khushi dena hi nahin chaahte the [Perhaps the teacher wasn’t there in Tokyo, God did not want her to have that happiness in Tokyo].” Redemption came to Rana too. From being persona non grata and the fall guy in Tokyo, he is now being celebrated as the chief architect of Manu’s success in Paris. “With her help,” says Rana, “I am no longer carrying on my head the blame that had been haunting me for two years. It is the biggest relief I have felt in my life.”
RISING FROM THE ASHES
Every athlete knows failure is a better tea­cher than success. Tokyo proved to be a harsh lesson for Manu. She had been unable to sleep after her pistol developed a snag in the qualifications for the 10m air pistol event, costing her time, focus and, finally, a shot at the finals. The next night had been no better, despite trying everything from music to yoga and meditation. Unsuccessful in her desperate quest for sleep, she had called her physiotherapist complaining of a headache and seeking medication. “I was so tired, my brain wouldn’t stop thinking,” recalls Manu. “I couldn’t control and channelise my thought process at all.” By the time she reached Stage 2 of the mixed team qualification, Manu blanked out. “I seemed to have entirely forgotten how to shoot, what my technique is, what I do to have a good shot. I’d forgotten the process, I was so clueless, I felt really disappointed in myself, like how could you do this, how could this happen?” Her sub-par performa­nce dragged down the combined total with teammate Saurabh Chaudhary, leaving them in seventh position and costing India, firm favourites until then, a spot in the finals of an event that had been introduced just that year. In her final event, 25m pistol, after a strong start in the first stage of qualification, her nerves entered the fray in the last 10 shots of the second stage. “As soon as it was over, all the things that had happened… I felt like everyone was making fun of me.”
Taking a break, she thought, would perhaps help her get over the Tokyo nightmare. She went for a holiday to south India with her parents. But she still couldn’t stop thinking about the sport. “I was holding a kettle full of water and practising my stance in the hotel,” she says. There was no forgetting the setback, but Manu had also made a bold declaration in a post-Games interview to the Olympic Channel. Close to tears, she had signed off saying, “Next time I will win, and you will see.” Manu cannot stand losing. Anshika Satendra, her bestie and a fellow pistol shooter, knows that all too well. “She is fearless and stubborn,” Anshika says of Manu. “If she decides she wants it, then she wants it.”
Turning a senior in 2023 was a moment of recko­ning for Manu. Doubt seeped in as she consistently struggled to find a spot in the national team in 2022-23 against talented youngsters like Esha Singh, Rhythm Sangwan, Palak and Simranpreet Kaur Brar. She wanted her place back, for which she needed her consistency back. Barring an Asian Games team gold in 25m pistol in 2023, individual glory had eluded her. Moreover, the statement in Tokyo haunted her. “I realised I needed to do something about it. I kept going because I felt keh ke nahin karna, sharm si aane lag gayi [to say it and then not do it had begun to get embarrassing].”
BORN TO SHOOT
Born to Ramkishan and Sumedha Bhaker, a chief engineer in the merchant navy and a teacher, respectively, Manu grew up in a household where she and her elder brother Akhil followed their mother’s “army school-like schedule”. TV time was restricted to 30 minutes and the kids were taken to play only after finishing homework. Sport was always encouraged. Manu tried kabaddi, tennis and skating, contact sports like karate and boxing, and the Manipuri martial art thang-ta, even winning national medals in the latter. “I wanted to learn self-defence,” she says, and “be strong and feel powerful. I didn’t want anyone to dominate me in any way.”
Shooting, though, was more an outcome of serendipity than design, of punishment in fact. As a student at the Universal Senior Secondary School in Goria, the 14-year-old Manu was reprimanded for either “sleeping or eating” (she can’t remember which) during history class and asked to leave the classroom. Wandering aimlessly in the schoolgrounds, she ran into a friend, who suggested they hit the shooting range to kill time. Coach Anil Jakhar was impressed by her upper body strength, which Manu attributes to boxing. He put spurs on her casual curiosity. Within a year, Manu had her foot in the national squad, the 15-year-old displacing the senior and then world #3 Heena Sidhu in the national championships, marking a key turning point. She would soon win her first international medal at the Asian Junior Championships. Manu had arrived.
By 16, she would come under the tutelage of Jaspal Rana, then the junior coach of the national team. As someone who encourages his pupils to maintain a diary detailing their training schedule and scores, Rana was impressed with Manu’s discipline. What he saw was “a child who goes through intense training and pushes herself to the limit”, he recalls. “I have had to push her out from the range many times.” What unfol­ded thereafter may well be called the Manu era. In 2018, at her maiden ISSF World Cup in Mexico, she outshot Olympic champion Anna Korakaki to win gold; she then broke the Commonwealth Games Record to clinch gold in 10m air pistol in Australia and became the first Indian shooter to win gold again in 10m air pistol at the Buenos Aires Summer Youth Olympics. In 2019, she and Saurabh Chaudhary dominated the 10m air pistol mixed team, winning all four editions of the ISSF World Cup. But just when she had hit what athletes dream of -the ‘zone’-the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 halted her momentum. Deemed medal favourites, Chaudhary and Bhaker returned empty-handed from Tokyo the next year.
BURYING THE GHOSTS OF TOKYO
“Manu knows she is answerable only to herself, it has never been about the coach, trainers or others. If she needs to do something, she will do it, no matter how tired she is,” says rifle shooter Anjum Moudgil, who has seen Manu transition from the junior to the senior team and negotiate the ups and downs along the way. With Rana back as her guide, Manu picked up the diary again and adhered to a schedule. It meant waking up as early as 5 am, doing yoga and meditation, going to the range for practice, then for physiotherapy, rehab sessions for her scapula and elbow, working out in the gym and taking out time for meditation again, before calling it a day.
To prepare for Paris, Manu trained at the ranges in Dehradun, Bhopal, New Delhi and, closer to the Olympics, in Luxembourg and France. The National Rifle Association of India, the body that runs shooting in the country, made an exception for Manu, allowing her to skip the World Cup in Munich in May and instead facilitating a range for her to practise there.
Relieved also of the burden of being the favourite, Manu flourished in Paris. Those watching her at the National Shooting Centre in Châteauroux saw a far more composed and confident athlete. Abhinav Bindra, 2008 Olympic champion, noted how Manu didn’t smile when she qualified for the finals of 10m air pistol, demonstrating her resolve to not rest easy till she won. Looking as ice-cool as an assassin with one hand in the pocket and a blinder shielding one eye, Manu was all business as she breezed through the qualifications and made it to the finals of all three events. “There are no longer any regrets about all the losses,” Manu told India Today TV after she won India its first medal in Paris. “My heart is clear. I have lots more to accomplish.” As the spotlight turned on her, she delivered another medal with Sarabjot Singh in the 10m air pistol mixed team event. Only now did they allow themselves some laughs. “Match ke baad ek doosre ki laat kheench rahe thhe [we were pulling each other’s leg],” says Singh.
What changed? Confidence and experience, Manu would say later. The confidence she attributes to Rana who, she says, made things so rigorous in training that she only had to execute all that she had learnt for the matches. Experience teaches one a lot in life, she says, and it showed in Paris. If in Tokyo, she was scared of falling short of meeting people’s expectations, in Paris, she did not let that affect her.
THE GYM JUNKIE
Outside the shooting ranges, Manu is like any other Gen Z kid who likes to shop for clothes and accessories, or listens to music [pop, Punjabi and Haryanvi pop, Hindi film songs]. Her screen time, though, is still limited, to retain her sight and focus, essential for shooting. Downtime for Manu means going for drives or watching a film. “Sometimes we plan to make a reel and we always fail to do it,” says Manu’s friend Anshika, 25. While there’s no diehard crush, both twentysomethings agree that Aditya Roy Kapoor is easy on the eye. Diligent about her diet, Manu prefers “ghar ka khaana” over meals outside.
Manu is also a workout junkie who savours the time she spends at the gym in their building in Faridabad. Her workout buddy-cum-3 am friend Supratik Chhaperia a.k.a. Super, tells us how Manu can knock him down even when sparring in jest. “Bahut zyaada jaan hai ismein [She has a lot of strength],” says the 30-year-old Chhaperia. Shooting is something they deliberately keep out of their conversations, but it’s a side he cannot escape. “Movie dekhte waqt bhi [even while watching a movie], most of the time she is holding (the posture of holding a pistol),” he says. Chhaperia credits her for her “grit”. “Good or bad training or match, she gets upset, but moves forward and thinks about how to improve. She is too ‘present’, that’s something I’ve learnt from her,” he says.
THE NEW NATIONAL CRUSH
While the glory of her Olympics achievements has yet to subside, Manu is already dealing with another kind of fame-of being India’s new ‘national crush’ or ‘it girl’. Her Instagram following has soared from 150,000 to 1.7 million post her Parisian exploits. From one brand, she is now endorsing seven. The past few months, she has been seen skydiving in Dubai, walking the ramp at a fashion show in Delhi and voting in the Haryana election. She seems at ease dressing up and posing for the camera; you only have to follow her on Insta to see how au courant she is with the latest sartorial trends. “I am creative with my outfits,” she says. “Sometimes it does feel like work, but I try to enjoy everything.” With P.V. Sin­dhu’s career on the wane, a nation starved of non-cricketing sporting icons has found its poster girl in Manu, a mantle she wears readily.
The ongoing Manu fever has also meant it’s the longest she has been away from the sport. Fame and success can also be sources of distraction. Rana knows he has to protect his pro­tégé. “Some are not able to digest the money or celebrity status they get. If a talented athlete is getting out of control, it is our responsibility to help them. I will do my best to keep her on her toes and grounded, but it is not entirely my work,” he says, adding that parents also play an important role.
At Vivanta Surajkund in Faridabad, as Manu wraps up the shoot and interview, her second of the day, Anantjeet Singh Naruka, a shotgun shooter preparing for the ongoing ISSF World Cup in New Delhi, asks how she has been. “Sleep-deprived but good,” Manu tells him, adding that she’s itching to get back to the range. Days later, she shares an Insta story with her picture at the range. “I really love and enjoy my sport. It’s when I feel most alive,” she says. India should be relieved that Manu has her sights set on the target. Hopefully, it stays so till Los Angeles 2028. And maybe even till India 2036.
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