CHATEAUROUX: “I think this fourth place will keep her alive,” was Jaspal Rana’s candid but apt assumption after Manu Bhaker ended her Olympics with a fourth finish in the 25m pistol event on Saturday at Chateauroux.
Rana felt she would not be the same again. She will have to pay a price for luxury and triumph. Preserving her would be the biggest challenge. There were a few things that Manu and her coach had done coming into the Olympic Games. In the last two months, they had recreated the Olympic setting. They followed the same time schedule as the Olympics, introducing similar playing conditions when he would not be behind her in the Field of Play. Even during the Bhopal trials, Jaspal was not there in the field of play. He used to sit in the stands and watch her.
Jaspal had had quite a few bitter tiffs with the National Rifle Association of India and this time, he did not want to get into all of these needless distractions. Since he was not part of the NRAI shooting coaches’ panel, he knew getting an accreditation that would allow him into the FoP was not possible. He got the accreditation that would allow him to use the shuttle service and entry into the stands because of Indian Olympic Association president PT Usha. Both of them knew.
Jaspal said it was all about planning. “We started training two months ago when we got the schedule of the Olympic matches,” he said even as Manu was giving interviews in the noon sun after the event. “We got into that routine and then we sent the report to Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) and we told them that we will follow this routine.”
The biggest challenge for Jaspal was to keep her engaged and motivated. The 20-30 minutes daily walk from the shooting ranges to the Game Village where he used to drop her turned into a discourse between the guru and shishya. “The conversations were different on different days depending on the day,” Jaspal recollected. He said she is quite moody at times and she would ask questions he did not have answers to.
Jaspal felt Manu had a great series and almost had a perfect shot. “I am happy how Manu shot today. If you look at the South Korean who won the gold, she hit three out of target (OT). Manu has not done that,” he said. For him, Manu was a reflection of what constitutes a beautiful shot. “What makes her beautiful is herself. The way she carries herself. Everybody is under tremendous pressure but still the way you walk, the way you stand and fire.” It is a whole package.
Jaspal spoke about how it was Manu’s decision to keep leaving her parents back home. He said that if things had gone wrong then he could take the blame and face the consequences but the two did not want the parents to face any kind of harassment.
With LA 2028 as a target, Jaspal and Manu would try to focus on the big job in hand.