Manu Bhaker misses medal, finishes 4th in 25m pistol event at Paris Olympics

Indian shooter Manu Bhaker missed out on a record third medal at the ongoing Paris Olympics 2024 on Saturday (August 3) as she finished fourth in the women's 25 metre pistol event in Chateauroux, France.

She lost to Hungarian bronze medallist Veronika Major in the shoot-off.

In a high-quality final, Bhaker gave it her all and was placed No.1 among eight shooters for a brief period, but she could not maintain her consistency and eventually finished.

Nonetheless, the 22-year-old will return home with her twin bronze-medal feat in women's 10m air pistol and mixed team 10m air pistol partnering Sarabjot Singh. She is the first Indian since Independence to win multiple medals at a single edition of the Olympics.

The affable Indian shot 28 in the final to be tied for third place along with Veronika after the eighth series of five shots. The Indian missed two of the five shots to aggregate three points, while Veronika drilled in four bullets into the target to clinch the third spot, leaving Bhaker to pack up her kit and leave her firing station.

In the qualification on Friday, Bhaker shot a total of 590 (294 in precision, 296 in rapid) out of a possible 600 to reach her third final of this Olympics in second place.

Expectations were really high from Bhaker to bring home a hat-trick of medals given her awe-inspiring form. She stood up to the challenge even after slipping to sixth position early in the final.

The first series was a disaster in which Bhaker missed three out of five targets, but gradually she cut down on the errors and bounced back in the second and third series, shooing two consecutive 'fours' to take her points tally to 10 going into the elimination round.

The elimination round was topsy-turvy, to say the least. Bhaker's chances waxed and waned until she took the top spot for a brief period in the seventh series (fourth elimination round).

However, South Korea's Jin Yang wrested back the top spot immediately even as Bhaker slipped to tied third with a rank bad three misses in the eighth round, which saw her slump from second spot to joint third with Veronika on 28 points.

The shoot-off was nerve-jangling for both the markswomen and Bhaker had three clear shots out of five on target, while Veronika had four.

Bhaker's finish just outside the medal bracket once again brought to the fore the saga of fourth-place finishes for Indian shooters in the quadrennial showpiece.

She joined the likes of Joydeep Karmakar (men's 50m rifle prone, 2012 London), Abhinav Bindra (men's 10m air rifle, 2016 Rio) and Arjun Babuta (10m air rifle, 2024 Paris Olympics).

(With agency inputs)