It would have been understandable if Manu Bhaker had crumbled.
In August 2021, she had been made the face of Indian shooting's collective collapse at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Her pistol had malfunctioned, nerves had set in, the target had looked mighty small, but most of all she was accused of letting a guaranteed medal slip (anyone remember Saurabh Chaudhary?). She was, they said, the anti-thesis of what an Indian Olympian should be: brash, mercurial... and a choker. She was 18 that summer, and got none of the kindness that age ought to have granted her. Every mistake was overanalysed, every stereotype leaned into. The aftermath of that Olympic failure was as brutal as it gets. It would have been understandable if she had just stopped there, given up on the sport and moved on in life. It would have been understandable if Manu Bhaker had crumbled.
She almost did. Manu fell out of love with the sport, with competition. But the more she thought of it, the farther in the rearview mirror Tokyo got, the more she realised that this feeling was temporary, that shooting still ruled every aspect of her life. So, in a bid to rediscover her passion, she turned to the one man she knew would be able to help her. But it came with a catch: she would have to keep her ego aside. For anyone that's not an easy thing to do, for an elite athlete it's even harder. At the point, it would have been understandable if Manu Bhaker had crumbled. If she had wallowed in the pain of the epic, extremely bitter fall out she had with this ex-coach of hers...
... But she picked up the phone and called Jaspal Rana. "If I was in her place," Rana would say. "I wouldn't have called me...She is the one who took the first step. I can't think how much courage she must have had to call me and ask for my help... If she could find it in her to overcome whatever ego she might have felt, how could I have refused to work with her?"
Buckling down, she qualified for Paris in three events. At the Chateauroux shooting range, though, it would have been understandable if the nerves set in, if the ghosts of Tokyo came to haunt her... but in her first event, the 10m air pistol, she qualified for the final in third place. Finally, an Olympic final. Even this, though, could have triggered a collapse - Manu was always a great qualifying shooter, but her final shooting had often let her down. Standing there on that range, alone but for her thoughts and her fears and that small target 10 metres away, it would have been understandable if it all became too much for her, if the weight got to her. It would have been understandable if Manu Bhaker had crumbled.
She didn't.
Not on July 28, when she survived five eliminations to win bronze. Not on July 30, when she dug in deep to pull her teammate (Sarabjot Singh) and herself to another bronze, becoming the first athlete from independent India to win two medals at the same Games. Not August 2, when she made her third final in three. She may have finished fourth there, but three finals in the space of a week told her story for her, loud and clear -- Manu Bhaker is everything an Indian Olympian should be.
She had suffered pain, so cruelly inflicted, and survived. At rock bottom, she had recognized what she needed to win and set aside her ego to go get it, to nurture her dreams. She had stood in the spotlight, under the most intense pressure, and thrived. So, you ask now why Manu takes her two bronzes everywhere she goes, why she walks around with them dangling around her neck? Because those two pieces of metal stand as a reminder to the world, and to her, that she could have crumbled at any stage of this long, winding, journey and yet she didn't. Because it's a testament to her champion will. Oh, and because she, and only she, can.
For that, Manu Bhaker is ESPN India's (Female) Athlete of the Year 2024.