Three years ago, Manu Bhaker was made the face of Indian shooting's failure at Tokyo 2020. Only a teenager then, making her Olympic debut, she had a terrible experience in all three events; compounded by a weapons malfunction that saw her break down at the range. It was the kind of burden that crushes the best of athletes. She was almost crushed.
But Olympic medals are won by the brave. It takes bravery to put your body and mind through the grind of elite sport. And it takes a special kind of bravery to win after building back from a mental rock bottom.
Manu has that extraordinary bravery, as her medal in Paris today has underlined - and as her life after Tokyo revealed.
She could have been lost to the world of sport, as many of the prolific names were after the Tokyo debacle. She could have quit it all when she was thinking of how she wasn't enjoying shooting anymore.
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Instead, she didn't hide after that debacle. She dug deep and continued shooting. Sharing her life on social media. She kept getting scores good enough to be part of a very competitive national team at most events, even when she didn't enjoy it anymore. She found other activities to engage herself, picking up hobbies like the violin and dancing. Last year, when India's top wrestlers were out on the streets in protest, she was one of the few athletes to support them publicly.
But perhaps her bravest act was to reconnect with her former coach Jaspal Rana. She and Rana, her coach from her junior days, had had a widely-publicised and bitter fallout before the Tokyo Games; the mental toll it took was cited as one of the reasons behind her performance at that Olympics.
Later, it was said to be all a misunderstanding between two talented and temperamental shooters. But it was Manu who reached out first, recognising that she needed her coach's guidance, and it has proved to be the difference. The courage and self-realisation needed for someone in their early 20s to put their ego aside and do what's best for their career cannot be overstated.
It's this courage that has helped her rediscover the spark that made her one of India's finest teen shooting prodigies. It is this courage that saw her come through the tough, four-stage Olympic Selection Trials in India in not one but two disciplines. It is this courage that has now given her what can be one of the best, almost palate-cleansing, moments of her life.
On Saturday, when she reached her first Olympic final after a confident show in the qualification, she didn't show much emotion. She knew the real task was ahead of her. For all her many achievements, Manu doesn't have the best record in major finals after solid qualification numbers, like at the last two Asian Games.
After winning the medal, she quoted the Bhagwad Gita and Krishna's advice to Arjuna. Manu is also a markswoman, much like the archer Arjuna from the Mahabharata. And she kept her eye on the target throughout.
She didn't waver once in what was the biggest final of her life. She stayed in medal contention throughout, not dropping out of the top three even once.
A picture of calm on the range, she took her time to raise her arm, aim and shoot. No emotion on her face - another sign of her maturity - till the final shot, where there was a strange ruefulness to her; she had missed the silver by a margin of just 0.1 points. A whisker.
It's a mark of her elite athlete mentality that she was a tinge disappointed, she wanted more. But to the rest of us watching, a medal of any colour is precious.
And she will get her chance, with the 25m pistol and mixed team events yet to come.
All because Manu Bhaker was brave beyond her years. And with two more events to come in Paris, this can be just the start of her Olympic legacy.