Paris Olympics 2024: India’s daughter Manu Bhaker gave the country its first Olympic Medal

Paris Olympics 2024: Has won bronze medal in 10 meter air pistol competition and 10 meter mixed doubles of Paris Olympics 2024. Manu Bhaker is the only athlete to win two medals in the same Olympics. She won two gold medals for India in the 2018 ISSF World Cup. She is the youngest woman of India to win gold in this competition. At the age of just 16, Manu won two golds in the air pistol event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Manu was born in a Jat family of Goriya village in Jhajjar district of Haryana. His father is a marine engineer and mother is a school principal. In her childhood, along with shooting, she also played boxing, athletics, skating and judo karate. When Manu was less than 18 years of age, her father left his job and started leaving his daughter for training with his licensed pistol.

It is illegal for a minor to carry a pistol while traveling on public transportation. Manu Bhaker got help from the National Rifle Association and the Sports Authority of India (SAI), which were formed after the 2012 Olympics. A new system of having personal coaches in their programs was started in which a well-known shooter is kept as the coach. Bhakar was coached by India’s famous shooter Jaspal Rana.

In the year 2017, Manu created a new national record by winning nine gold medals in the National Championship in Kerala. In the same year, Bhakar won a silver medal in the Asian Junior Championship.

In the 10 meter air pistol final at the 2018 International Sport Shooting World Cup in Guadalajara, Mexico, Bhaker defeated two-time champion Alejandra Zavala. With this victory, she became the youngest Indian to win a gold medal in the World Cup.

She also won double gold at the ISSF Junior World Cup in 2018. The same year, at the age of 16, she won the gold medal in the women’s 10 meter air pistol event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, setting a new Commonwealth Games record with her score.

In May 2019, Manu qualified for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the 10 meter air pistol event with a fourth-place finish at the Munich ISSF World Cup. In August 2020, Manu Bhaker was awarded the Arjuna Award by President Ram Nath Kovind in a virtual awards ceremony.