Indian shooters in Olympics 2024: Par for the course or a coming-of-age?

Was it the shooting's redemption at the Olympics? Or was it Manu Bhaker's vindication from Tokyo snafu?

It has been both.

After back-to-back uncharacteristic failures in Rio and Tokyo, there has indeed been light at the end of the tunnel.

Manu, who had to deal with a pistol malfunction and subsequent social media trolls, delivered a coming-of-the-age performance and unquestionably ended the Paris Olympics as India's most decorated athlete.

How else do you sum up her two medals and a four-place finish?

The 22-year-old shooter from Jhajjar displayed tremendous tenacity and mental fortitude to emerge as one of India's greatest shooters and perhaps one of the finest Indian athletes in the history of the Olympics.

Her impact on Indian sports after winning the bronze medals in the women's and mixed team 10m air pistol events will be profound.

Indians do not win medals at the Olympics as regularly as they do in other competitions.

Hence winning two medals at the same Olympics and coming close to achieving a hat-trick is an unprecedented event.

Never in the history of India's 124-year-old Olympics campaign have such feats unfolded.

Before Manu, only two Indian athletes had won as many medals at the Olympics - wrestler Sushil Kumar and shuttler PV Sindhu. But their feats came in two different Games.

Shooting is one of those select few sports that give athletes multiple chances to win medals in the Olympics. And Manu grabbed the chance with both hands this time to wrap her neck with two medals in Paris.

She is now the cynosure of the nation and has appropriately been declared the flag bearer for the closing ceremony.

A coming-of-age moment

Shooting has always been a promising sport in the Indian ecosystem, but since London 2012, the Indian shooters have missed their mark. The Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021 campaigns ended in utter failure. Manu's feats in Paris, therefore, hold immense significance.

Manu, however, is not the only one who pulled shooting back into the top echelons of Indian sports.

Shooters Sarabjot Singh and Swapnil Kusale have also contributed equally.

Showing his steely resolve days after missing a chance to reach the men's 10m air pistol final, Sarabjot teamed up with Manu in the 10m air pistol mixed team event to help his fellow Haryana shooter complete a brace.

Swapnil followed suit by winning the men's 50m Air Rifle 3 positions bronze in a field where Indians are traditionally not considered a major threat.

Paris 2024 was the Indian shooting's coming-of-age moment.

Before the Paris Olympics, India had won an aggregate of four medals - silver in Athens 2004, gold in Beijing 2008, and silver and bronze in London 2012.

When the curtain fell on shooting at Paris 2024, India's shooting tally went up to seven, thanks to Manu, Sarabjot, and Swapnil.

The marvellous performance of young Indian shooters in Paris has made shooting the most successful individual Indian sport at the Olympics. With six medals, wrestling now trails.

There were missed chances too, with Manu herself coming agonizingly close to winning her third successive medal. But she had to settle for a fourth-place finish in the women's 25m pistol event.

In the men's 10m air rifle final, Arjun Babuta stumbled a few steps short of a podium finish, finishing fourth.

In the mixed skeet team event, Maheshwari Chauhan and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka endured a similar heartbreak. They lost to China in the bronze medal shoot-off by one point.

Though losses are always heartbreaking, such near-misses are an indication of the rising stature of shooting with the promise of a brighter future.

With seven Indian shooters reaching the final, it was an incredible show from the shooters in Paris, given the overall context of their underperformance in at recent Olympics.

After the Tokyo debacle, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) took several much-needed corrective measures to amend the shooting's fortunes.

It has allowed personal coaches of shooters to be involved in the preparatory process and held four-match trials to maintain transparency in the selection procedure.

Their efforts have now borne fruits.

Time for introspection

But the question remains - was the performance superlative or are we just happy with the fact that Indian shooters did not return home empty-handed this time?

For a contingent of 21 members, one of the biggest at the Olympics, in a sport that offers 15 gold medals and 45 medals in all, three bronze medals hardly be termed a success.

And the NRAI has its work cut out, especially while working on the shooters' mental aspects of the game.

Despite coming into the Olympics with substantial international success, shooters like Sift Kaur Samra, the world record holder and Asian Games gold medallist, failed to reach the final of the women's 50m rifle 3 positions.

Similarly, Ramita Jindal, competing in the women's 10m air rifle final, failed to shine either, and Arjun Babuta stumbled on the high-stakes pedestal.

On the other hand, experienced shooter Elavenil Valarivan shot a below-par 9.8 when she needed a better score to make the final.

Still, Paris 2024 will hold a special place in Indian shooting.

It gave Indian shooting three medals and a much-needed foundation to build towards bigger moments and specifically, the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.