Manu Bhaker finishes fourth in women’s 25m pistol shooting final at Paris Olympics

On Saturday, Manu Bhaker came agonisingly close to bagging a historic third Olympic medal in Paris before finishing fourth in the with 28 points in women’s 25m pistol final.

She was initially tied for the third place with former World record holder (25m pistol), Veronika Major of Hungary before she dropped two points in the shoot-off series to hand the Hungarian a podium finish.

Yang Jiin of South Korea won gold with 37 points (via shoot-off – 4-1) while French shooter Camille Jedrzejewski got silver.

Manu had advanced to her third final in the ongoing Summer Games after finishing second in women’s 25m pistol shooting qualification on Friday. No other Indian shooter has reached more than one final at a single Olympics, and only Abhinav Bindra has made three Olympic shooting finals for India, across three Games.

Manu, already a two-time medallist at Paris 2024, had finished with an overall score of 590.

The 22-year-old Manu, who has won two bronze medals in the women’s 10m air pistol and mixed team 10m air pistol events at the Paris 2024 Olympics so far, achieved a score of 294 in the precision round and 296 in the rapid round.

In Tokyo, three years ago, 19-year-old Manu had failed to reach the finals in all three of her events. Now, she has become the face of Indian shooting’s success in Paris.