Manu Bhaker is an Indian woman shooter from Goria village in Haryana’s Jhajjar district. She began to represent India at the senior level internationally at the young age of 16 in 2018. She is a rising shooting star.
She won her 1st international medal by clinching Silver at the 2017 Asian Junior Championships followed by winning 9 Gold medals at the 2017 National Games held in Kerala. She defeated 2-time World Cup Gold medallist Heena Sidhu and bettered her national record of 240.8 points by scoring 242.3 points. In the 2018 Asian Games, she set a game’s record score of 593 points in the qualification round of the 25m air pistol event, but she failed to win a medal in the final.
She finished impressively 5th in the Women’s 25m Pistol Qualification Precision Round at the Tokyo Olympics. Manu shot 592 with 9 inner 10s. She opened with a 97 and managed another 97 before finishing off strongly with a 98.
Manu Bhaker won the 2021 BBC Emerging Player of the Year. At a virtual awards ceremony held in March 2021, Manu Bhaker was chosen as the BBC Emerging Player of the Year.
Won 5 medals, including 4 gold medals and 1 bronze at the recently concluded ISSF Junior Shooting World Championship in Lima, Peru. Sher was in scintillating form on Friday (5th November 2021) as she won gold in the 10m air pistol mixed team event with Iran’s Javad Foroughi at the ISSF President’s Cup in Wroclaw, Poland. She had won gold in the last edition too, in 2019, with Chernousov. The tournament was called the World Cup Final back then. Bhaker has been in sterling form post the Olympics.
She has won the Arjuna awardee in 2020. Manu Bhaker won the 2021 BBC Emerging Player of the Year. At a virtual awards ceremony held in March 2021, Manu was chosen as the BBC Emerging Player of the Year.
Check out Manu Bhaker in conversation with WF President, Ms. Namita Nayyar on her sports journey, her victories & shooting!
Namita Nayyar:
Sports has been an inseparable part of you since childhood, share the series of events that led you to take up shooting as a professional sport?
Manu Bhaker:
Few games were left out due to injury and timing and others due to corrupt systems and corrupt judgments. And also study compulsion kept me changing games.