Olympics 2024: Manu misses history
Manu Bhaker and Jaspal Rana, the pupil and the teacher, are likely to agree given how their reunion has turned out to be. Bhaker, who had already won two bronze medals, narrowly missed out on a historic treble at the Paris Olympics on Saturday.
In a high-quality final, Bhaker gave it her all and was placed No.1 among eight shooters for a brief period. However, she could not maintain her consistency and eventually finished fourth after losing a bronze medal shootoff against Hungarian Veronika Major in the women’s 25m sports pistol event. The 22-year-old shot 28 in the final to be tied at third place. In the tiebreaker, she missed two of the five shots to aggregate three points, while opponent got four shots on the target to clinch the third spot.
All this seems like a dream after what happened in Tokyo three years ago.
After the shooting competition at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the talking point was not the abysmal show by Indian shooters, but a public spat between Bhaker and her coach Rana.
Heartbreak for Manu Bhaker! India's pistol pro misses out on making Olympic history in Paris
The then 19-year-old Bhaker faced a lot of flak, mostly unjustified and vitriolic, for failing to win a medal. Rana, on the other hand, was called ‘a negative factor’ and held responsible for the flop show. The two even stopped talking to each other. It was an unpleasant situation.
However, better sense prevailed and a year and a half later, Bhaker and Rana sorted things out and forged a partnership. The same
