By Admin 
Double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker has taken the failure to live up to her exalted standards in the ISSF World Championships on her chin and acknowledged that she “cannot win everyday” while lauding the performance of her compatriots.
That Bhaker couldn’t feature among the 13 Indian medallists in the just-concluded tournament has come as a bit of a surprise to many in the shooting fraternity.
“I was aiming (for medals) at the World Championships. My performance was good, scored decently, couldn’t make it to the podium. My teammate Esha Singh did… in sports you cannot win everyday, sometimes you lose as well,” Bhaker said during an event on Tuesday.
“For me it is like India should win a medal and it shouldn’t be about me or someone else winning it. As long as India is winning any medal, I am cheering for it, be it any sports,” she added.
The 23-year-old pistol ace was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of ASMITA (Achieving Sports Milestone by Inspiring Women) social media handle.
After the Olympic high in Paris, Bhaker hasn’t quite set the stage ablaze this year and the bronze medal in the women’s 10m air pistol competition of the Asian Shooting Championship in August remains one of her highlights in 2025.
Speaking about specially-abled athletes, Bhaker said they are an inspiration to everyone.
The shooters won India’s first medals at the ongoing Tokyo Deaflympics with Dhanush Srikanth defending his men’s 10m air rifle title with a new world record score of 252.2 and Mohammad Vania winning the silver in the same event.
“All the specially abled athletes are an inspiration and motivate us a lot. We learn a lot from them, the fighting spirit they showcase is incredible and we all look up to them. I would like to extend my heartiest congratulations to all of them and if they need any kind of help or support we’ll be there.”
On the ASMITA initiative, Bhaker said it will help in changing the mentality of people in rural areas about women aspiring to make it big in sports.
“Initiatives like this will play a major role in transforming the mentality about girls in sports. Coming from a rural background myself, I have face a few issues if not many regarding mentality, like she is a girl and shouldn’t play sports and doesn’t belong here.
“We still have this kind of mentality in few parts of our country. So, ASMITA will surely play a major role in changing that. If women are given equal chances just like men, they can do well.
“I would like to highlight that in the last few Olympic Games, women have done tremendously well. I just want to say that it is high time now that we should support our women and also support ASMITA to become a bigger success than Khelo India.”
In Paris last year, Bhaker became the first athlete from independent India to win two medals at a single Olympic Games.