CHATEAUROUX (FRANCE): There she stood, with one hand in her pocket and the other holding the air pistol – her weapon. The hall at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre was rather warm and the air was grave. There were quite a few tense Indian faces in the stands.
Manu Bhaker was in the first Olympic final of her career but she did not fetter. She converted the stage into her own gladiatorial theatre, delivering shot after shot with such precision that the tiny black dot in the centre looked like a big circle. She won India's first medal, bronze, at the Paris Olympics. The gold and silver in the 10m air pistol went to two Koreans — Oh Ye Jin (gold) and (Kim Yeji).
Hours before the final, her coach Jaspal Rana, who is staying outside the village, was waiting for the shuttle at the Chateauroux railway station. He sat among the audience and there were occasional glances at him from Manu during the gruelling competition. He was smiling and greeting everyone but that was just a facade. On the day she qualified for the final, there were tears in his eyes. This success is as much about him as it is about Manu.
The 22-year-old shooter has matured over the years. She has so much confidence in her ability now that sometimes her words can be construed as smug. But that is how it is for all stars.
Even at this age, she knows that it is not talent that is restraining her from winning an Olympic medal, it’s the mind. “I know my ability and after the early two-three years of one’s care, one need to be taught technique. It’s to, and how, you manipulate your mind.”
She and Jaspal worked on that aspect. Daily meditations became part of their ritual. Playing cello made her relax more.
Curiously, India's quest for gold in Paris began by the side of a river whose name bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Indian god Indra. The river is called Indre in French.
A lot had been spoken about Manu. As a teen, when her friends were having fun, she was quietly setting records. She was celebrated and became the face of Indian shooting. Winning an Olympic medal was just an inevitability. It was written in her destiny. Talent was not the question, steady mind was.
Pressure at the Olympics is completely different. Manu, at 22, is already seen as a veteran. She had competed at the last Olympics, failed to win a medal, went into a shell, even thought of giving up the sport. That perhaps made her stronger and fortified her resilience. Nothing could hurt her any more.
She drifted away from her coach Rana and it was not until last year that they buried the hatchet and decided to carve out a new destiny. The two combine well and that's the mojo.
Manu spoke about the journey she had with her coach Jaspal. “I'm grateful that all those years of hard work that we have put together paid off with this, and probably even more. We will not let this get the better of us. We will keep trying hard, and I definitely owe a lot to him for making this. He made the training so difficult for me that when it came to performing, it wasn't very difficult for me. So he played a huge role in the medal, it's the sweat and blood of both of us and many more also.”
On Tokyo and now
Manu recollected the harrowing experience of Tokyo 2020 as well. But she blamed her for that failure. "Kahi na kahin, meri hi laparwahi hogi (somewhere it was my mistake). There must have been some shortcomings from my end because of what happened.” She said that it is always better to leave the past behind and look forward with hope. “If you can't win something, you should take lessons from it, which in turn will help you improve further going forward,” she said.
“If I didn't have that lesson in my life, maybe I wouldn't be here today. So I'm grateful that at such a young age, in my first Olympics experience, I learnt the kind of things that people take years to learn. It's after that that I'm standing in front of you today. And now I understand the value of this, and what the kind of hard work and effort it takes to get here.”
With this attitude she would approach the next phase of her life.