Manu Bhaker, the young shooter from Haryana, has not only made history by winning two medals at an Olympic Games but also captivated India’s millions of sports lovers with the clarity of her thinking. She did not break the glass ceiling so much as shatter it in becoming the first Indian woman to win a medal in shooting and then going on to better it by winning a medal in the mixed tam shooting event, too.
As the first Indian athlete to win two medals in one Olympics Games since Britisher Norman Pritchard did it while competing for India in Paris in 1900 in what was only the second of the modern Olympics, Manu has created history with her success in nerveless marksmanship in the stress of world class competition in a sporting capital that has hosted the Games several times.
The world of advertising has been the quickest to jump on the bandwagon with myriad offers already for endorsements for a bright young lady whose journey from a promising shooter who shook up the competitions among juniors at the world level to an Olympic medallist has been a truly inspiring tale of sporting conquest, even if it is only the third prize that she won in the extreme world of precision shooting where a centimetre makes a huge difference.
Manu had missed qualifying for the gold medal final because of one poor shot. The vicissitudes of sport are such that only three years ago a dejected Manu had even contemplated quitting shooting after her air pistol malfunctioned in the Covid-hit Olympics in Tokyo. Turning to the spiritual, much in the Indian tradition of seeking out a message in divinity, she says she found herself inspired by the advice in the Bhagavad Gita to “just do what you are meant to do and leave the rest to your destiny.”
Manu’s partner Sarabjot Singh, a farmer's son, was another who had to draw on inspiration to stay in the sport after setbacks and who made up for disappointment in the men’s individual event to partner Manu who seemed to have been the steadier, more calm and composed of the pair as they fought off the South Koran duo of Ye Jin Oh and Wonhoo Lee in marksmanship in the mixed team 10m air pistol bronze medal match.
Two of India’s individual gold medal winning athletes may be men in Abhinav Bindra and Neeraj Chopra, but the women have contributed immensely to the rise in India’s sporting stature with weightlifters, boxers, wrestlers and badminton players accounting for eight medals after the nearly-there run of P.T. Usha in Los Angeles in 1984. The sacrifices they have made and the balance they have achieved between pursuing sporting excellence and life and career place them in a category of people who may have had to work harder to achieve success.
The difficulties faced and conquered in seeking gender equality in sporting opportunities and finding funding in the amateur era are pointers to how the women athletes of yore fought battles to establish the present-day scene in which the chance to excel in sport is available to athletes of the fairer sex. And performances like those of P.V. Sindhu and Manu Bhaker in winning more than one medal are a tribute to their spirit. Manu, who can have a decent shot at another medal in the 25m sports pistol event, will be carrying the weight of even greater expectations.
