Chateauroux (France), Aug 3 Manu Bhaker’s historic 2024 Paris Olympics campaign came to a bittersweet end on Saturday as the winner of two bronze medals at the tournament missed out on her third with a fourth-placed finish in the 25m pistol women’s event. Following her elimination from the Women's 25m Pistol, Bhaker spoke to IANS, expressing her thoughts about her own performance.
“I feel unfortunate that I was not able to deliver a better finish but I am going back home with two medals, lots of motivation and now I have something to look forward to in the next Olympic Games. I will keep trying my best and keep working really hard to do better than this performance,” Manu Bhaker told IANS.
Manu was initially tied for third place with Veronika Major of Hungary, before dropping two points in the shoot-off series, allowing the Hungarian to finish on the podium which saw her eliminated with a fourth-placed finish.
Manu had a lot to prove as she headed into the 2024 Games after having a heartbreaking campaign in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The 22-year-old elaborated on her journey since the last edition.
“I was nervous (on the shootout) and I knew it was either in or out, but I wanted to give my best which unfortunately was not enough,” she said.
“Tokyo seems like a long time back to me. It’s just been three years if you look at it but emotionally, physically, technically it feels five years back. It feels like I have much more experience and more things to focus on than in the past. Despite the medals, there is always scope for improvement,” added Manu.
The list of records broken by Manu kept growing throughout the tournament. She became the first women shooter to win a medal for India, she became the first Indian athlete to win two medals in a single edition after Independence, along with Sarabjot Singh, the duo also brought home India’s first-ever medal in a shooting team event.
Bhaker also spoke about what she plans on doing once she reaches home, plans which involve eating home-cooked food by her mother. “The first thing I am going to do is analyze my performance so that I have something that I can look at if I ever need it in my career. Secondly, I am looking forward to the food in India, I have missed it so much because we have been in France for 15 days and before that, we were in Luxembourg.”
“My mom is eager to cook me food and my mom said, ‘You come home and I’ll cook you anything you want’,” concluded Manu.
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