Manu Bhaker is an Indian athlete who has won several medals for India in shooting.
She won the bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics, becoming the first woman shooter from India to ever win a medal at the Olympics.
Born in Jhajjar, Haryana, she took up sports from an early age and tried her hand at tennis, skating, and boxing at the school level.
She also practised Manipuri martial art ‘Huyen langlon’, and won medals at the national level. She then decided to try shooting and ended up loving it.
She won her international first medal—a silver—at the 2017 Asian Junior Championships.
At the 2017 National Shooting Championships, she won nine gold medals and defeated former Olympian and world number 1 Heena Sidhu, breaking her record of 240.8 points by scoring 242.3 points.
In 2018, Bhaker won a gold medal at the Youth Olympics Gold in the women's 10m air pistol event. At the age of 16, she became the youngest Indian to win a gold medal at the World Cup.
She qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the 10m pistol event via a fourth place finish at the Munich ISSF World Cup.
However, her Olympic campaign ended in disappointment when her pistol malfunctioned in the finals of the 25m pistol event where she was leading.
Her win in Paris earned India the first medal at the 2024 Olympics and was also first medal in shooting after 12 years.
Manu has an Honours degree in Political Science from Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College for Women and is currently pursuing her Masters in public administration from Punjab University.