Manu Bhaker Falls Short of Olympic Treble After Narrow Bronze Medal Loss

The remarkable treble pursuit of Manu Bhaker was brought to an end Saturday after the young Indian lost the bronze medal shoot-off to Hungary's Veronika Major in the Olympics women's 25m sports pistol event. Though she gave her best, Bhaker still fell short after a highly competitive final.

Bhaker, who briefly held top position amongst the eight finalists, found it difficult to sustain the performance and eventually finished in a tied third place. The 22-year-old Indian scored 28 in the final, level with Major's score after the eighth five-shot series, but the performance of Bhaker began to falter slightly as she missed two of her five shots while Major succeeded with four to seal the bronze medal, leaving Bhaker to pack up.

Despite the setback, Bhaker will return home with a commendable pair of bronze medals from the women's 10m air pistol event and the mixed team 10m air pistol event with partner Sarabjot Singh.

It proved to be a rollercoaster ride for Bhaker. From a poor start in the first series where she missed three out of five targets, she pulled herself up in the next series with two straight 'fours' and entered the elimination round with 10 points.

In these elimination rounds, Bhaker remained at various positions. She briefly rose to first place for the seventh series but lost it again soon after. A lackluster show in the eighth round, with three missed shots saw her falling to a shared third position along with Major.

While Bhaker could manage just three out of five in the subsequent shoot-off, Major hit four to seal the bronze for the Hungarian shooter. This close finish brings Bhaker into the list of near-misses of Indian shooters at the Olympics, which already has Joydeep Karmakar on men's 50m rifle prone in London 2012, Abhinav Bindra on men's 10m air rifle in Rio 2016, and Arjun Babuta on 10m air rifle in Paris 2024, all of whom finished fourth.