The sensational Manu Bhaker's dream of a grand treble went up in smoke after she lost the tie-shoot for bronze medal to Hungarian Veronika Major by the narrowest of margins in the women's 25m sports pistol event at the Olympic Games in Chateauroux, France, on Saturday.
In a high-quality final, Bhaker gave it her all and was placed No.1 among eight shooters for a brief period, but she could not maintain her consistency and eventually finished fourth.
Nonetheless, the 22-year-old will return home with her twin bronze-medal feat in women's 10m air pistol and mixed team 10m air pistol partnering Sarabjot Singh.
The affable Indian shot 28 in the final to be tied at third place along with Veronika after the eighth series of five shots. The Indian missed two of the five shots to aggregate three points, while Veronika drilled in four bullets into the target to clinch the third spot, leaving Bhaker to pack up her kit and leave her firing station.
Expectations were really high from Bhaker to bring home a hat-trick of medals given her awe-inspiring form. She stood up to the challenge even after slipping to sixth position early in the final.
The first series was a disaster in which Bhaker missed three out of five targets, but gradually she cut down on the errors and bounced back in the second and third series, shooing two consecutive 'fours' to take her points tally to 10 going into the elimination round.
The elimination round was topsy-turvy to say the least. Bhaker's chances waxed and waned until she took the top spot for a brief period in the seventh series (fourth elimination round).
However, South Korea's Jin Yang wrested back the top spot immediately even as Bhaker slipped to tied third with a rank bad three misses in the eighth round, which saw her slump from second spot to joint third with Veronika on 28 points.
The shoot-off was nerve-jangling for both the markswomen and Bhaker had three clear shots out of five on target, while Veronika had four.
Bhaker's finish just outside the medal bracket once again brought to the fore the saga of fourth-place finishes for Indian shooters in the quadrennial showpiece.
She joined the likes of Joydeep Karmakar (men's 50m rifle prone, 2012 London), Abhinav Bindra (men's 10m air rifle, 2016 Rio) and Arjun Babuta (10m air rifle, 2024 Paris Olympics).
