Paris (TIP)- A girl from Jhajjar in rural Haryana is the new sports icon of India. She has given India its first two medals, both bronzes, in 10 m Air Pistol. This new sports icon is none other than Manu Bhaker, a student at Panjab University in Chandigarh.
When she won a bronze medal in the 10 m Air Pistol for women, she became the first Indian woman shooter to win a medal in the Olympic Games. On Tuesday, she paired up with a boy from neighboring Punjab, Sarabjot Singh, to win a similar color medal in the 10 m Air Pistol Mixed team event. She thus added yet another feather to her cap to become the first Indian woman shooter to win two Olympic medals in the same Olympic Games. Incidentally, no other Indian shooter has won two Olympic medals.
Manu has her favorite event, 25 m Air Pistol (individual) left. She hopes to make a hat-trick of Olympic medals in her second Olympics after she drew a blank in the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. Her struggle and hard work have been rewarded.

She also brought luck to her teammate, Sarabjot Singh, who had earlier missed making the medal round in the men’s event. He finished ninth with a score of 577. His fellow shooter, Arjun Cheema, after a good start, suffered a lapse off concentration to finish 18th with a score of 574.
Arjun Cheema and Rhythm Sangwan failed to make the medal round in the event Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot excelled.
Shooting is one sport in which India hopes to reap a rich harvest of medals. Yesterday, Arjun Babuta finished fourth and missed the bronze medal by a whisker aggregating 208.4. It was a big heartbreak for him as he came so close and yet remained far away from his dream Olympic medal. His last two rounds of 10.1 and 9.5 proved costly for him while ultimate bronze medalist Miran Maricic of Croatia had 10.7 and 9.9 in his last two shoots.
One of the world’s oldest players in the Tennis circle, Rohan Bopanna, ended his Olympic campaign without a medal. He in partnership with Balaji was ousted in the first round by the French team of Gael Monfils and Roger Vasilin. Rohan had come close to winning a medal in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games where he in partnership with Sania Mirza lost the mixed doubles semi-final to Rajeev Ram and Venus Williams.
Rajeev Ram and Venus Williams then went on to win the silver thus making Rajeev Ram. He has been the first Indian expatriate to win an Olympic medal.
Yesterday when Manika Batra won her second round in women’s singles in Table Tennis, she defeated Prithika Pavade, also a player of Indian origin representing the host country, France. Manika won in straight games against her.
Incidentally, another player of Indian origin in the competition on Monday was Jessica of Canada. Jessica is a water polo player and played the goalkeeper of the Canadian team that lost its opening game to Hungary.