CHATEAUROUX: It is perhaps more than just providence that Manu Bhaker won a medal in the countryside town of Chateauroux, where a river named Indre flows. After all, religion, spirituality and philosophy are all vital ingredients in the magic potion that transformed her ability into an Olympic bronze.
It is difficult to not be a touch philosophical when talking about the 22-year-old's bronze in the women's 10m air pistol final. Especially when she was so nearly not here. She had secured a quota in the 25m pistol event and qualified for the 10m event only through trials. On Sunday, she won India’s first shooting Olympic medal since 2012 (London). Another first — first Indian woman shooter to medal on the grandest stage.
Fittingly, Manu kept speaking about aura, positivity and inspiration after her feat. Much of that inspiration came from that profound book of 700 verses – The Gita.
In the final, Manu was calm. There were also occasional glances at Jaspal Rana, her coach sitting among the audience (Rana didn't have an accreditation card for him to be close to her in the field of play). “One look at him and that gives me courage,” she said after the final. “I found him among the audience and looked at only him and nothing else.”
Karma is what she believes in, more so after the Tokyo Games in 2021 where public criticism caused her to hit the nadir after failing to qualify for the final in all three of her events. “I read a lot of Gita,” she said. Karma is what has transformed her into who she is. It defines her.
“One of the famous quotes is Krishna’s ‘karma pe dhyan do, aur phal ke chinta mat karo’ (focus on the work but don’t worry about the reward). The same was running through my mind from last night (Saturday when she qualified). I told myself ‘whatever happens, I’ll handle it’. My goal was to give it my best in every shot and not to worry about the outcome.”
Manu and her coach talk about several inspiring and motivating parables, verses, and anecdotes. Training is not just limited to shooting, it’s mental too. She doesn’t believe in getting an external psychologist. “My coach is my psychologist,” she had told this daily before the Olympics.
Just before the final on Sunday, the duo were talking about Abhimanyu – Arjuna’s son. How he knew how to enter the 'chakravyuh' but did not know how to exit. “So we talked about how he knew how to get in but not about getting out. Use your information. Use your knowledge to get into the final. Just do it. Win or you die. So she won,” Rana said.
The training rituals, according to Manu, were even more challenging than the actual Olympics. “Perhaps, that has made me stronger because the Olympics was nothing,” she said.
One such ritual is quite interesting. They would either concentrate on the technical part or something ridiculously different. “It’s different from other coaches," she said. "For example, he sometimes sets a target, and if you score that much, then fine. If not, for the deficit in points (for example, if the target is 582 and you score 478), you have to give 40 euros or 400 euros, depending on the situation.” And what do they do with the money? “You either donate that sum or purchase things and distribute it to people. At almost every training session, this is the rule. At times, he increases the intensity quite a lot and takes it up to 400 euros.”
One over, two to follow. She will pair with Sarabjot Singh in the mixed 10m air pistol event before the 25m event later on in the week.