How Manu Bhaker missed out on an Olympic final due to a broken part in her pistol

One of India's biggest medal hopefuls at the 2021 Olympics, Manu Bhakar, missed out on a finals appearance in the 10m pistol event by just two points. Manu scored 575 points in her total of 60 shots, falling short by the tiniest of margins.

However, one of the main reasons behind her failed attempt was that a small part of her pistol broke during her shooting event, which took away more than 6 precious minutes (out of the 75 allotted) in the qualification round.

What exactly happened with Manu Bhaker's pistol?

When the 60-shot qualification started, Manu made a good start with 98 points in her first 10 shots. After 16 shots, she had 156 points, but something was off with Manu's pistol. She informed her coach Ronak Pandit and then showed the gun to the jury member. The lever in the pistol was broken, so the barrel wasn't coming out and she couldn't load the pellets.

Manu Bhaker getting her pistol checked by the jury

After a discussion, the jury allowed Manu and Ronak to replace the broken part of the pistol in the equipment check room. Usually, every shooter carries a spare gun but in this case only the broken part needed to be replaced. The parts from the spare gun were removed and replaced in her event gun. Manu finally came back but had already lost six precious minutes and it took a toll on her performance.

She made a great comeback with a perfect 10x in the next 4 shots, scoring 95 in the second 10-shot series. Manu then scored 94, 95, 98 in the next three 10-shot series.

In the last 6 minutes, Manu had a daunting task to shoot 7 shots. The time crunch became deafening in the last 4 minutes as she still had three shots left.

Her last shot fetched only 8 points and it ended her hopes of reaching the finals. Had she shot an inner 10, she would have tied with Celine Goberville of France and Olena Kostevych, and tied on scores and 10x shots. However, she would have qualified for the finals by ranking seventh courtesy of her higher scores (97) in the final set. Instead, Manu ended up in 12th position with 575 points.

Had Manu Bhaker scored an inner 10, she would have fetched 97 in the final set and qualified for the finals

Another Indian shooter at the same event, Yashaswini Deswal, finished 13th with 574 points and failed to qualify for the finals as well.

Manu Bhaker's coach Ronak Pandit is proud of her ward's performance at the Tokyo Olympics

Ronak Pandit had an exclusive chat with Sportskeeda after the match and he said:

"Despite the fact the we lost sometime in between, Manu made a great comeback and shot brilliantly. The final shot was an eight-pointer and unfortunately it made all the difference," her coach, Ronak, said.

Manu Bhaker did not get any extra time from the jury despite her pismalfunction

On being asked about the problem with the pistol, Ronak added:

"It's the wear and tear part of the pistol and we don't see a crack in it. It's a metal poking part that is never supposed to be broken. This is the rarest of the rarest things that happen. It had to happen on D-Day, which is a bit disappointing, but the last shot made the difference. "

"I asked the jury to give me some extra time (beyond 75 mins) because of this technical glitch. It's not allowed in the rules, so we had less time. But she made a great comeback and missed out on the final by just 2 points."