Paris Olympics 2024: Manu-Sarabjot, a tense bronze medal and a time-out that changed everything

About 15 minutes into the bronze medal match of the 10m air pistol mixed team competition at Chateauroux on Tuesday, Indian coach Munkhbayar Dorjsuren called a time-out.

She went to Manu Bhaker.

Within a few minutes, Manu was standing on the podium alongside her teammate Sarabjot Singh. A shiny bronze medal adorned her neck —her second of the Games — posing for a selfie with the gold and silver medal winners. Her place in history secured as the first Indian woman to win multiple medals at a single Games.
But earlier, though, she was standing on the left of the firing line, trying to conceal as best she could just how bad things had gone.

If you started watching the match at that point, you wouldn’t have guessed it.

Manu splayed the fingers of her shooting hand in front of her and observed her varnished nails with the casual nonchalance of someone mildly annoyed with a bad manicure. It was obviously a lot worse than that.
The digital scoreboard above her revealed all – a score of 8.3.

This was the poorest the 22-year-old had shot in the entire Olympics thus far.

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A game of confidence

Her reaction was that of a wounded prize fighter who grins after taking a vicious body punch, as if to show they are still in the fight. That bluster almost never works. No one bought it here, certainly not the Indian coach.

Shooting is a sport of confidence and Manu had just been kicked where it hurts. Manu down on confidence did not bode well for India either.

There are a few ways the 10m air pistol mixed team event plays out differently from the individual one. For one, it is conducted in a point-based format. A pair of shooters from each team takes one shot each – the scores are added, and two points are awarded to the team that has the higher score. The first to 16 points – the equivalent of winning eight separate series – wins the match. On Tuesday, that meant winning an Olympic bronze medal.

The other way the format differs is that coaches can call a time-out – a one-minute pause, which can help break bad momentum.

Until that point, the 22-year-old Manu looked set to keep her glorious vein of form – the one that had helped her become the first Indian woman to medal in shooting two days ago in the women’s 10m pistol event.

On Tuesday morning at Chateauroux, she was not just keeping India in the contest, but well in front of a Korean pair that also included Oh Ye Jin, who had won the women’s individual title with a world record two days back.

Seven series were over. Manu had scored higher than her teammate Sarabjot in five of those (and equal to him in the sixth). India had won five series to South Korea’s two – leading 10 points to four.

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It was easy to see why. Manu came into the final brimming with the confidence of someone who had just made Indian sporting history, while Sarabjot had entered with his spirits rather deflated. At the qualification event of his individual event, Sarabjot missed out on making the Olympic final by shooting one fewer inner-10 score (10.3 or higher) than the last qualifier for the final.

Sarabjot later admitted that he didn’t sleep too well. When they were introduced at the start of the match, Manu casually had her hands tucked into the side pockets of her trousers. Sarabjot placed his hands protectively in front of him. Body language experts know what that means.

Unusual pair

The two make a strange ‘team’ – already a concept alien in shooting, a sport that seems to self-select those who prefer individuality and solitude.

Both Manu and Sarabjot are 22, but they later admit that they barely spoke to each other before the match. Sarabjot also revealed that they don’t follow each other on social media. But here, the pair worked together.

Starting out, Manu did the heavy lifting. Sarabjot started in as poor a fashion as possible – shooting an 8.6 to her 10.2. He trailed Manu even as she piled on her scores.

Funnily enough, the Koreans were the first to call a time-out after Sarabjot’s 9.6 had been evened out by a 10.5 from Manu. That effort put the India 8-2 up.

At that point, Dorjsuren came up to the Indian duo. She said a few words to Manu before going to Sarabjot. She took his shooting hand in her own and began massaging it.

“At that time Manu didn’t need anything. She was fine. She was full of confidence. Sarabjot needed my attention,” she later said.

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The break had the intended effect on the Koreans. They won the next series. But Manu hit back too – her 10.6 the decisive score to put the Indian’s 10-4 up. Just when it looked like India was going to coast to victory, there came a timely reminder – that 8.3 – that this was the Olympics and Indians don’t win shooting medals that easily.
India now called a time-out.

“Of course I had to. She was under a lot of pressure at that point,” Dorjsuren said. While the score had come as a shock to the Indian, the coach, a two-time Olympic medallist, was expecting it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Olympic final where a medallist hasn’t shot an 8 or a 9. Everyone will at some point,” she added. 

Dorjsuren walked up to Manu, who had already glanced anxiously to where her coach Jaspal Rana was in the stands. Just as he had done in her individual medal match, he pointed at his chest as if to say: “You got it”.

The German-Mongolian coach allowed Manu and Jaspal to communicate and then went up to her and said:

“What’s done is done. Now you can only do better.”

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She then went up to Sarabjot but didn’t overburden him with information.

“Calm, No pressure. Process,” she remembered saying, placing her palm on his back to reassure him. “At that time, you feel very alone. Sometimes you don’t even know what the coach is saying. I had to let him know physically that he was ok,” she explained.

The recovery

In the very next shot. Sarabjot shot a 10.5 – it was his highest score of the match. Manu was still not out of her funk and grimaced as she released the trigger. She managed a 10, her second-lowest score after the 8.3. However. the total was just enough to beat the Koreans 20.5 to 20.4. The Indians won the next series to open a 14-6 lead before the Koreans closed the gap to make it 14-10.

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Manu had another bad shot – a 9.4. It should have been enough, on most days, to leave an opening for the Koreans to push through. But they had a bad series as well.

If Sarabjot had shot poorly once more, his scoresheet anyway largely littered with underwhelming scores, Korea would have had a reason to celebrate. But when it mattered most, Sarabjot stepped up. He shot a 10.2. Not his best, but it was more than enough. He made the decisive blow, but like a good team-man refused to take credit for a win that his teammate had set up.