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          Manu Bhaker's future: She's still 22, and has targets, but can she find the triggers?

          What next for Manu Bhaker? ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images
          • Zenia D'Cunha
          Aug 4, 2024, 04:40 AM

          Manu Bhaker's path-breaking Paris Olympics campaign came to an end on August 3 with a fourth-place finish in the 25m sport pistol. After a week with two medals from two events, the genuine expectation of a third medal was perhaps a mark of the standards she set with her performances.

          Even with the narrow miss, this remains a record campaign for Bhaker and Indian shooting. She has erased the Tokyo debacle narrative, and rewritten history with her two bronze medals. And she's only 22.

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          Speaking on television right after the match, she was visibly emotional, but one thought came through clearly: she was already talking about the future, about doing better next time. "The moment my match was over I was like okay next time," she said. "...next time probably we have a better finish [than the bronze]."

          In fact, her mind - known to be organised and process-driven - was in LA 2028 mode even before that final event. "Two days back she met me at the gym, and she shared how these Paris medals could make things tougher going ahead," Ronak Pandit, India's 25m pistol coach, told ESPN from France on Saturday. "She was talking about it in a light-hearted manner, but she is aware of the incoming expectations."

          That she's already looking for more reveals a great deal about her head space right now. This hunger for more, for improvement is what sets good athletes apart from the great.

          Shooting's most credible yardstick is the Olympics, and the next big thing will be the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. The interim competitions have their own significance, as markers of progress, but her goal will be to upgrade her Olympic bronze medals and win more.

          To achieve that, though, the planning begins now.

          It may feel like it's too early to talk about the next Olympics in the middle of the current one. But to quote Abhinav Bindra, the Olympics is not every four years. It's every day.

          Winning an Olympic medal, in a mentally taxing sport like shooting, especially after coming back from the brink like she did, can take a lot out of an athlete. From big things, like Bindra wanting to go into silent retreat, to small, like Mirabai Chanu finally getting to fulfil a pizza craving.

          That's why, the first step will be a break of at least three months. Her coaches have spoken about the importance of taking some quality time off after she returns from Paris. To rest after a taxing week where she was competing almost every day, between qualification and the final of her three events, and taking off that huge, invisible burden of her shoulders.

          That break will not be a rest, though; there will be fanfare back home - prominent people to meet, functions and cash rewards and endorsements and interviews to attend. Remember the manic pursuit of Neeraj Chopra after the Tokyo gold? Celebrity status, though welcome, can be draining, both physically and emotionally, if not overwhelming. Remember Chopra, again, saying he had put on weight and lost some of his conditioning after the spate of felicitations. It's part of the reason he stays away from India for long periods during his training.

          Bhaker's personal coach Jaspal Rana, whom she credited for her revival after making a brave call to approach him post Tokyo, knows that there will be a new situation back home to deal with. "She is answerable to a lot of people right now, needs to fulfil her commitment towards fans," Rana told PTI. "There is a price to pay (when you become famous), that is why we kept three months completely off."

          To her credit, she is not thinking of future fame and fortune now and wants to get back to her thing, and perhaps eat a little more of what she likes. "I don't know about handling all that. I think I am just going to stick with my shooting and my other routine (gym and yoga) around it," she told PTI. "For now, I just want to eat a variety of Indian food for the next three months. I don't think Jaspal sir would let me sleep late in the morning. I would eat a lot but ensure that I workout as well."

          The next big challenge for Manu then will be for her is to stay in the present as the world's perceptions and demands change around her. Pandit, who was with her at the Tokyo Olympics back when she had a fallout with Rana believes that the onus to keep her grounded will be on the people in her inner circle. They didn't let her go astray after the Tokyo heartbreak and they will have to keep her calm after the Paris success. His suggestion to her was, "Let's just do everything right that is required in this moment and surround yourself with the people who love you for the person you are. Not people who love you because you're a champion." For the rest, there is a team around her.

          "Earlier we stepped up to make her perform," Pandit says. "Now we need to step up to give her some space to enjoy this time and then guide her on how to get back once she is ready."

          One thing is clear: Given the level of competition in Indian shooting, she can't rest on her laurels for too long. In an already numbers-driven sport, the Indian federation has a strict aggregate-based selection policy in place and the margins separating the top Indian shooters are miniscule.

          Consider this: Manu wasn't even in India's top three in 10m air pistol - where she won her two Olympic medals - at the Asian Games squad last October. Palak Gulia became the Asian champion with Esha Singh winning silver and neither of them made the Olympic cut.

          In other words, unlike Neeraj Chopra or PV Sindhu, Manu has stiff competition even at the national level.

          This can be either a big boost or an added hurdle as she builds to LA 2028. The Paris medals may have given her the fulfilment she needed but the narrow misses - for silver in 10m air pistol and the fourth place in 25m pistol - will also be fuel to get better. She has more to learn, as the nerves in her third final - despite having already won two medals - show. Seen from another lens, this means she still has new targets to achieve and people to push her.

          "You don't need her to improve. What you need her to be able to do is manage and adapt to new challenges that will come. The answer to all the problems will always come down to being in the present, that's what we need to practice," says Pandit. The national coach's debrief will also wait, once she is back settled in and then they chart the road ahead.

          After three months, whenever Manu enters the range, she will be both Olympic medallist and starting at zero like everyone else. And that will be a big test of the emotional maturity she has earned across two Games.

          These two bronzes may well be the blood she has smelled as she builds her appetite for something bigger. After all, she belongs to the new generation of Indian athletes that are hungry for more. Again, she can take a leaf out of Chopra's playbook: his focus and consistency in the three years since winning Olympic gold have been incredible. It helps that shooting is a sport that makes for long careers, some well into their 40s and 50s, if their sharpness is intact.

          Manu has a long, long road ahead of her after these milestones. Once she comes through the lull that follows Olympic euphoria, she can chart her path to even more greatness as she builds from bronze to gold.